#bitch you didn’t even get them TO me within 3 working days. monday-friday is 4 working days

[fingertipsmp3]

This week has really been one of those that has me straight up not wanting to leave my house or contact anyone or do anything because something seems to go wrong with everything I do

[sircnss]

So, you want fill out a bracket

[insert captain america gif here]

attn.

@nctphx @acetrainermj @violagoth @chocolatspring @noonachronicles @uwunnie @little-writing-worm @aerislulu

HELLO AND WELCOME TO KPOP MARCH MADNESS: SEPTEMBER  SONG ALBUM SHOWDOWN

I have made what I hope is a cohesive tutorial on how to fill out your brackets and whatnot. If you do have any further questions, please feel free to message me and I can always help out.

 Everything will be under the cut to save your dash

But FIRST, why am I doing this again?

We lost all our concerts for the year (ty stray kids and eric nam for being the only in person concerts I got this year), I lost the opportunity to do poorly in the actual college basketball March Madness and we all need a tiny bit of fun in some form this year! All without having to actually leave and it is SUPER low stakes.

 In fact, I do all of the work and you guys just campaign your little hearts out for your favorite album because the more votes (voting will take place on a google form, which will be covered later) the better and it makes the races more fun for me to watch.

The idea of a fandom March Madness started from a livejournal community waaaay back in the day and I never did well in that either lmao so the idea is 1,000% not mine originally.

tl;dr I participated in this back on LJ in the 2010s, it was fun and low stakes, I added the prize element in the middle of the March Edition.

WELCOME TO MY WORLD LET’S DO THIS

---

For purposes of this tutorial, I’ll be using a shortened version of the March Madness bracket.

Step one.

I will send you a link to the main bracket which is being done through Google Sheets, what I need you to do is to make a copy and title it [YOUR NAME]’s Bracket and then fill out the entire thing and then share it with me with editing access. I will most likely be making a copy for myself but I will only be editing yours to strike-through the loser of the round and bolding the winner so you don’t have to! Once you make the copy and shared it with me, all you have to really do from there is sit back, relax and vote/promote. 

The first bracket, I believe it says Round of 64 on the bottom tab is the one we will be using!  

Step two.

Below is what the contenders list looks like! In the case of song showdown, it’s done in groups and then ARTIST - ALBUM TITLE. This gets generated into the brackets!

Step three.

Click on the little check box for the choice you want, it will automatically move that choice to the next round.

Here it is again with the entire second round picked out, notice that nobody has been selected yet for the following rounds

Step four.

Repeat what you did in step three for the remainder of the rounds. Pick your favorite for each round and then repeat until it’s all filled out and you get a champion, your champion. The pick you know is that bitch and everyone else is wrong.

Step five.

Vote! How? You say? I will be obnoxious for approximately 3 days with reblogging a link to a google form where you can cast your votes.I’ll be tagging you in the initial post so you don’t get surprised when you see it the fifth time and your name suddenly has appeared. Share that post, bribe your friends, family, dogs. Campaign if you want! If you do campaign I will reblog it and come up with a tag to follow so you can see the cool campaigns. If I was graphically inclined I would do it for you but...I’m not. Anywho

The points!

If you look at this spreadsheet, you’ll see how many points each round is worth and how I let the spreadsheet do the math from there. 

I believe that covers everything! Again, if there’s any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me.

My goal is to have the first round officially start on Tuesday, September 8th. So please expect a message this weekend with the link to the main bracket! Please remember make a copy, fill it out through the end and then share it with me again so I can make my own copy to keep track of the points and make the appropriate notations (bold and strike-through) with each round.

FAQ (these questions aren’t frequently asked but they could be)

1. March Madness made sense, why are we doing albums when it’s called September Song Showdown?

I was going to do this in April as a song showdown and now I realize it could have been April Album A-Something, but albums are easier to pick than songs and it’s September now. Maybe next September it’ll be a song Showdown.

2. You mentioned prizes???

Yes! I had a couple of friends who aren’t into kpop participate and I bribed them with a prize if they won and stuck to it when @chocolatspring won! Even though Gaby didn’t get her prize until like 2 weeks ago but it’s fine, I’ll be more on top of it this time just in time for the December holidays!

3. How do you know who goes in what spot?

Random.org/lists! I shuffle them 5-10 times and then go through and put them on the main spreadsheet, shown above in the actual tutorial.

4. How do you figure the points?

Spreadsheets, baby! Each round is worth a certain number of points, each album you pick that goes on to fight the next round will earn so many points, those points are then added up and triple checked before I put them on a separate spreadsheet. The spreadsheet does the math from there. 

5. I won, so now what?

Congrats! You have the best intuition and convinced enough people to vote for your fave! On top of being announced as a winner on the final post, I’ll message you and you let me know what your choice of prize is (an album of your choice, a gift card or something else).

5.2 Wait, is this free?

20 bucks, venmo me. Kidding. The only person this will end up costing money for is me. Which is why when I say an album of your choice within reason, I mean I’m not going to say you're limited to a price range, but like...I can’t do a crazy expensive album.

6. What happens if I end up tanking just after the first round?

There’s no coming back after a bad round so welcome to...a second chance bracket! I don’t know how to do that yet, but you can continue to vote, promote, whatever your heart desires, but there will be a small thing I haven’t figured out yet for the person with the least amount of points.

7. Are you participating?

Yes! I don’t gain or lose anything from this so my points don’t really count. So if I do end up winning, the next highest amount is the actual winner.

8. Just to be clear, can people not filling out the brackets vote in the polls?

Yes! Share it on your twitter, reblog the post on your tumblrs! The more votes the merrier! Heck, I got my mom to play in March and showed her pictures and she chose based on that alone for her voting. 

9. How long is each voting round going to remain open?

5 days. Rounds will be open Monday-Friday, I will make the initial post Monday and share it again throughout the day, a reminder on Wednesday and then finally on Friday with plenty of time before the form closes. Results will be shared Saturday afternoons and I will spend Sunday getting the new round ready. 

[rjwrites22]

On Failure

A continuation of my previous post (the reblog).

“Story Time”:

I've always been told that I'm really smart, and I believed it to the point that if I did badly at school I felt like a complete failure as a person. I actually taught myself to read when I was like 3 or 4, and someone compared me to a calculator at one point, so I think I was perfectly within my rights to believe them.

In first grade, my mom tried to get the school to let me skip right to third grade, but they wouldn't let me, as they said I'd be "eaten alive" socially. I've never been good with people, so I don't think that would have mattered much.

Up until fourth grade, I did really well in school. I can't remember why, but that year, I started forgetting to turn in my homework, so my grades started dropping. The forgetfulness continued, and procrastination joined in at some point.

In high school, my sophomore year, I failed at least the second semester of Spanish 2, if not both semesters. I dropped the class the next year, even though that severely narrowed my list of options for colleges.

Junior year, I failed both semesters of English 3, since we had to do research papers both semesters and I've always hated them, so I didn't end up doing either one. Did summer school for that class, and the research paper I had to do in order to graduate I wrote over spring break my senior year.

I also failed second semester of U.S. History junior year, but I don't know why that happened, just that I had to retake the class.

My mom threatened to kick me out of the house when I turned 18 if I didn't graduate when I was supposed to. With her, doing well isn't something to be praised for. It's an EXPECTATION, at least when it comes to me.

I almost didn't graduate, by the way, but not because of anything academic. My school requires a certain amount of PE credits to graduate, 3.5 years' worth (but people in sports could get out of the class for the semester the sport was in), and I've never been all that good athletically. The final exam for second semester was running 3/4 of a mile in a certain amount of time (and they claimed to grade on effort, not skill! Hypocrites). I needed a certain grade on my final to pass the class (I think it was a 41, but I'm not quite sure), and I got two percent more than that (I think it was 43, again not sure). So I literally passed high school by TWO PERCENT on my fucking PE final. I hated that class for the most part, and I think that it's completely reasonable for me to do so.

College time now. First semester of my first year was hell, in more ways than one. My seasonal depression was the worst I can really remember it ever being, likely due to the added stress of both college AND the political clusterfuck that was the end of 2016.

In Calculus, the professor has a policy that if you don't have at least a 60% after the second chapter test, which is effectively the midterm, you get dropped from the class. After the second test, I got dropped, and I felt like a complete failure. I've always done well in math, so this was a real hit to my self esteem.

I also failed psychology, but that was because petty much all our assignments were online, so I forgot to do them.

Band, I got a D in. Why? Because the professor gave writing assignments, and I HATE those, so I didn't do them. I also forgot to do them, but that's not really the point.

Got a shockingly good grade in English (B), and chemistry was good too.

Second semester wasn't too much better. Failed English, because I got the due date for the research paper wrong by two days. Failed chemistry, because I missed a couple days and didn't have time to catch up before the test.

First semester my second year was worse, grade-wise. Retook psychology, failed once again for the same reason as before. Retook calculus, and I passed it with a D. I needed a C or above to move on to calc 2, so that sucked.

I was supposed to take economics, but financial aid was a bitch and it was an online class so when I couldn't get the book I was screwed. After I got the book, which I had to buy loose-leaf and thus couldn't return, I found out that I'd been dropped from the class. That damn book cost me like $200, so I was pretty ticked off by that.

Second semester that year was great, like REALLY great, so no real comment on that here since this is about failure.

First semester this year - my third year. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped.

Over the summer, I got a job. Third shift at a factory in town, 10:30pm to 6:30 am. I continued the job through the end of August, but then I had to quit for my own well-being. My classes were pretty much all day on Tuesday and Thursday, with nothing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I would get off work, go home, shower, then go right to school. Classes almost straight through from 10:35 to 4:50, no lunch break or anything, then I'd go home, catch a few hours of sleep, and go to work again. I had a nervous breakdown in physics one Thursday, when I literally COULDN'T EVEN THINK. Physics was my last class of the day, so I was almost dead by the time it started, so... Yeah. It wasn't great. Quit my job a week after the breakdown.

I got a D in physics, or maybe a VERY low C. I blame the fact that I probably didn't absorb all that much for the first few weeks, since I was basically a fucking zombie during that class.

Took economics again, this time an actual class. I thought it would be a time-filler, something I'd do because I needed the credit from it. It was actually a lot of fun, though. Got a B.

Calculus, I have no idea how well I did, even though the final was a week ago so the grade is definitely online for me to see. I'm too scared to look at it, since I didn't do too well on the tests.

Actually, I had a dream about my calc grade this morning. I'd gone online and checked, and my final grade for the class was like a 46%. That was just a dream, thank god, though it did nothing to help my fear of what my grade might be.

I'll check the grade at some point, might remark on it here if I remember to.

tl;dr: RJ fails at shit but keeps going because I'm a stubborn bitch.

Moral of the story? If you fail, you can move on from it. If you fail the same thing multiple times and keep going at it, then you're just as stubborn as I am - though I certainly hope you're better off mentally than I am - and I commend you for your persistence.

Keep on keeping on, people.

[laceandhockeyskates]

What the hell I’ve been up to?!

I don’t even know how to make an introduction for this hot mess but I guess we’ll go month to month more or less because let me tell you 2018.... really fucked me up. Both in good ways, but also in terrible ways? I don’t know... I feel like it’s all worked out in the end but damn was it a mess to get to this point. 

 January- lovely, lovely January. Aka the last time I’ve posted anything of real value on this blog. I had my first trip out of the country!! Other than that uneventful?! 

 February and March (since nothing happened)- I turned 25. I don’t remember anything besides grabbing lunch with my grandma for it... so clearly it was a huge deal. Besides that though.... nothing. 

 April.... this is when things got.... interesting- we found out in April that the retail company I worked for was going out of business. Which was absolutely terrifying. I had no idea what I was going to do, how long it was going to take to find a new job... I knew nothing. That very day that we were told I put in 25 job applications. Within a week I had 4 job interviews lined up for one day that I had off of work, and at the end of that day I had a new job. 

 May- and it gets worse. May 4th was my last day at the store before I started my new job on May 5th. It was somewhere that I had applied to several times and never got a call back from, and it was only a three minute drive from my house so I thought everything was going to work out. Right? Wrong. I HATED it. With every fiber of my being it was the worst. I sat in my car on my lunch breaks crying more often than I wasn’t. It was honestly awful, and some greater power that be must have recognized how miserable I was because I was only there for less than 2 weeks. I started on the 5th and I worked my last day there on the 17th. I was scheduled to have that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off already which I was thankful for and had all these plans. So since about November-December I had these back pains that started right between my shoulder blades and wrapped around my stomach every few weeks. At first I thought I had a strange strand of the flu, and then I thought I was just sleeping on my back wrong.... well neither was accurate. That Friday night I was sitting on the couch watching tv when the pain hit me again and at that point it was more of an annoyance thing because like seriously?? So I just did what I always did and took pain meds and prepared myself for a night of no sleep and taking a hot bath every two hours to pour steaming hot water over my back (aka the only thing that really helped), by Saturday I wasn’t any better and my dad offered to take me to the ER. I thought he was just tired of listening to me whine about the pain and not really worried but I did let him drive me to Walmart to get a heating pad and more pain killers. Which again... helped.... but only for so long. I actually got to sleep that night and woke up at 3 am in literally the worst pain of my entire life. I quickly got in the tub hoping that the hot water would work or the heating pad or really anything. By 5 am though I knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong and that’s when I asked my dad to take me to the ER. Which I don’t think he took me seriously until 7 when my mom woke up and I asked her to go. It took less than 5 minutes at the ER to be told I have pancreatitis and gallstones and I’m basically screwed. By the time I came back from chest x rays I was being admitted. And let me tell you... that shit sucked. My Er nurse asked me how I was feeling and I literally laughed and told her I was just happy that it wasn’t all in my head. Which she very much assured me that it wasn’t. And that I actually have a high pain tolerance considering anyone else would be screaming in pain, and that if I had waited another few days I’d be going in with a raptured gallbladder. That first day... sucked to put it kindly. Because I had a gallstone blocking my pancreas I wasn’t allowed food (I ended up going from 5 pm Saturday to 2 pm Monday without food) or water (4 am Sunday to 2 pm Monday). Do you know it’s like to go that long? I was the biggest asshole because all I truly wanted was applesauce and water. To top it off though they couldn’t figure out a pain med that actually worked for me. Morphine lasted about as long as it took to get to my toes (a few seconds at best) so I was miserably in pain the entire time. Monday wasn’t too bad. My mom came and visited me, and for the most part I was left alone with the occasional check in minus my surgery consult. Tuesday.... was a day. I’ve never had surgery before and to say I was anxious would be an understatement. I had been waking up around 5-6 am anyways and was just watching the news when I realized there were two people standing outside my door.... I had originally been told my surgery was the 3rd of the day and I wouldn’t be going until about 11 am which gave my parents enough time to get my brother off to school and to be back in time to see me off... that’s not what happened. They had bumped me up to #1. Which meant my labs hadn’t been put in as needed ASAP and had to be run again but as soon as that was done? I was being wheeled away. What I didn’t know was that my mom had a nightmare that I had been taken to surgery early and that I died on the table... so you can imagine her reaction when I texted them that I was actually going to surgery early... needless to say my dad sped all the way to the hospital. Actual surgery though? I don’t remember a ton. I remember going to the holding room and being introduced to a bunch of people that I knew for all of five seconds before going into the OR. I remember moving from my bed to the table and then being wrapped up in a bunch of warm blankets and given the mask. I wasn’t told to count down or anything but within seconds I was out. I remember vaguely waking up to be moved from the table to my bed and I THOUGHT I had only fallen back asleep for the ride to recovery... apparently it was a lot longer than that. I woke up once in recovery and could have sworn they cut me open side to side but nope. It was a successful surgery with only four tiny incisions that hurt like a goddamn bitch let me tell you and then I passed back out... when I finally woke back up again I was awake long enough I was allowed to go to my room where my parents were relieved to see me. I was up walking within an hour (I was told I wasn’t allowed food unless I moved around and got the gas out of myself and had bowl movements. They recommended walking. I wanted food.) and that day was spent between doing laps and sleeping. The next day? The day I was suppose to go home? My labs came back with a high white blood count... and I lost it. Despite my parents visiting me every day I was tired of feeling alone. Luckily though Thursday I was finally released.... in time for my baby brother to graduate high school. Which was a fun ceremony when you’re hopped up on pain meds. 

 June- was a hot mess of dealing with medical leave at the job I hated, but mostly? It was spent enjoying the summer. Once I was cleared for activity I was swimming nearly every day and soaking in the summer with my two baby cousins who turn 12 soon. Despite the physical pain I had to deal with and the stress of work I wouldn’t have traded that in for anything. It gave me so many fun memories to look back on and enjoy. 

 July- I was suppose to go back about the 8th but medical leave was... a mess. And tbh at that point it wasn’t worth the stress to keep that job when for the time being I was making enough by doing side jobs for my family to pay my bills. I did start applying for new jobs though while I spent more time enjoying my summer with my kiddos. By the 27th though I was starting my new job, which is where I’m currently at while I type this long ass post but we’ll get into that a little farther down. Two days later though as I was about to start my first full day at my new job I got the text message I never wanted to get. I had to call my cousin/best friend. Long story short her mother had passed away meaning that she had lost both of her parents in seven years. Something I can’t even imagine. But not only that but it meant that my grandma had also lost her sister and best friend, and my great grandmother had to do the one thing no parent should ever go through.  

August- was honestly a really intense blur. Between two weeks of dealing with the fall out of losing my aunt and starting my new job I didn’t have a life. In late July/early August though I knew something was up with my car but I honestly thought it was just a tie rod going bad... no. Apparently my entire undercarriage was more or less rusting out and I was screwed. I didn’t have any money saved up for a down payment, I had no idea if I could even afford a car payment yet (despite working a better paying job with more hours but I was use to basically barely making ends meet with maybe $20 left over). Luckily my parents who are the real mvps of my life stepped up and helped me figure everything out and I had a new car within a week of starting to search (she’s my baby girl. I’m obsessed. She’s literally everything I wanted minus the fact that she’s white and my previous car was white and I wanted to avoid that: but besides that... I’m happy with her and she’s worth the pretty penny I pay every month). 

 September- was a goddamn mess work wise. It’s all I did. Work. 

 October- I took my first major road trip on my own (driving 2 and a half hours by myself on the interstate. It was a big deal.) and saw FOB in concert which was... life changing. I completely recommend seeing them if you ever have a chance (also machine gun kelly was there and despite the fact that I don’t care for rap.... he was pretty good.). Other than that though October was more work craziness. 

And now for November, and if you guessed work was insane... you’d be right. When I was hired in July it was all “oh it’ll only be busy until like October” and now my boss is like “maybe by March we can get our sanity back for two months?” Which don’t get me wrong I’m grateful. I’m making a $1 more an hour, actually working full time, and I don’t hate a majority of my coworkers (there’s still a handful though that if I had a shopping cart at work I’d run of their bare toes but that’s more because they make my life unnecessarily stressful) but I’m actually happy???? Like as stressed out as I am basically 24/7 I’m doing alright. I have a majority of my Christmas shopping done and wrapped which like?? And idk... I’m just.... I’m in a good place. And I won’t lie I still check myself once and awhile going “okay something is bound to go wrong.” But also maybe all the good is outweighing all the bad that I had to deal with. Anyways so that’s the life update. If you actually read that... bless your soul. Message me. We’re now best friends. And hopefully in the coming weeks I figure out what the hell im doing with this blog.

December update I wanna die lol! We had two people quit in three weeks leaving us with four people to cover 24 hours 7 days a week....it’s a great time. 

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Austin episode 5 reaction

one thing you can say about this show, it’s a great endorsement for smoothies and condoms

Episode 5

Clip 1 - Meg loves smoothies and Shay loves Meg

I find the setup of what happened after bowling, at the concert, so weird. Like Meg apparently confronted Marlon about meeting with Abby, and he denied it. It seems like it would have been so awkward! Too much tension! Did he have an alibi? I guess you don’t want to waste expensive concert tickets but it’d be so hard to relax and have a good time with that hanging over your head.

I don’t care much about text etiquette or teenage formalities but Marlon could at least ask Meg to the dance in person considering what a dick he’s been lately.

Shay looks very pretty in this scene. I wonder if that glow in her cheeks is for Megan...

Shay reacting to the smoothie: “Is this a protein shake?” Adorable, but lmao, do you not know what a smoothie is? When meeting with your friend meglovessmoothies?

I looked up the restaurant where the smoothie is from and they have the $7 smoothies Marlon had mentioned. But they also have $3-5 smoothies so he’s a dumbass. Just don’t get the expensive shit.

But also, here are some of the $7 smoothies:

MAGIC CARPET RIDE: cherry, pistachio, tahini, sumac, himalayan salt, banana, coconut water

BUSINESS TIME: cold-brewed espresso, banana, peanut butter, raw local honey, cacao, rice milk

GOLDEN TICKET: banana, almond butter, dates, hemp milk, cinnamon, golden paste (turmeric, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, coconut oil, black pepper, himalayan salt)

I don’t know about you but I would try the shit out of those wild-ass hipster smoothies.

“I was supposed to go over to Tyler’s house, but I ended up watching Netflix on my phone for like six hours.” That sounds like the best possible way to spend a Friday, Shay.

If they’re making Shay Isak, but with a crush on Meg instead of Marlon, how is it going to work if she rats out Meg? Because Isak had the crush on Jonas, he was hurting Jonas by breaking up their relationship but he wasn’t spreading gossip about him. If Shay leaks gossip about Meg, her crush, that’s pretty cruel. Is it going to play out a different way?

Shay does an Isak-worthy eye narrowing at one point.

The ending conversation is so cute and Meg’s “Hey bitch” is my favorite moment from her so far. I hope the two of them hung out all afternoon.

Clip 2 - oh god Kelsey no

The idea of Daniel snapping a picture of Kelsey’s virgin bed with a blood stain, as his idea of a trophy, makes me sick. Oh my God, why. Do The Youth do that these days??? And you know Grace being all, “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that,” is more to soothe Kelsey’s nerves rather than because she believes he is truly not capable of it.

I think Grace being all “let’s not talk about Daniel’s dick” is because she’s very careful about sex and body image due to her bad experiences, if she has Noora’s history.

“He’s probably sharing details about me.” Kelsey, you don’t want to hear what Daniel might be saying about you. It’s so sad that she probably sees this as a positive for her. 

If I were Grace, I would be dragging Kelsey’s ass after school to get some emergency contraception. Plan B is at its most effective within 72 hours, which it still would have been when this clip aired; it’s less effective after 72 hours but it still works, and you can buy it over the counter. 

Actually it is kind of weird that none of the versions of Skam have brought up the option of emergency contraception. Especially in this version since Grace seems quite informed and proactive about birth control. 

“Wait … you didn’t use a condom?” “Well, I mean I brought it with me.” Holy shit, Kelsey, it’s not a talisman that wards off evil. You have to stick it on a dick for it to work.

Grace is the embodiment of that Shirley from Community gif. The lord is testing me.

At least Jo acknowledges that something could have gone wrong even if she’s glad it won’t interfere with their dance plans.

“Hi pretty” lacks some of the male entitlement of “Smile” but I appreciate Meg’s passive-aggressive response just the same.

In this and all versions, there’s something to be said about how boys expect girls to be cheerful for their benefit. Not just because they want their girlfriends to be legit happy, but because a smiling, nonstop happy girlfriend is easier to deal with than an upset girlfriend who might hold him accountable for his BS.

Goddammit, Daniel. Can Grace just punch this fucker in the balls already?

Look at his fucking sunglasses. What an asshole.

It’s kind of weird that Jo flirts so openly with Meg when any of her friends could be like hey, did you know this dude has a girlfriend? Or that someone has seen his “in a relationship” status on Facebook, or a picture of him and his girlfriend, etc.? But it’s a stretch in the original show, too. And I guess they didn’t care if he flirts with her if it comes with perks.

Clip 3 - Meg and Marlon fight again

You can just tell that Meg wishes she were shopping with her girls rather than having to deal with her mans.

Marlon don’t you dare try it with that Even Bech Næsheim cheek kiss and nose rub. I’m not saying Even owns the rights or anything, you’re just banned from doing it unless you can treat your SO with respect.

Megan looks like she flinched when Marlon rubs his nose on her arm.

I mean, Marlon is right in that I wouldn’t want my SO to have to call my parents to confirm my whereabouts, but that’s beside the point when he is lying out of his ass.

“I wish you could stop being so insecure all the time.” Oh fuck off. You put her down to her face not only when the two of you are alone but in front of your friends, who sometimes join in on teasing her, you belittle or dismiss her interests and activities, you bail on plans randomly, and you tell obvious lies. Even without the shady business with Abby, he’s doing so much to make her insecure just from the way he treats her and speaks to her.

Lmao, not to downplay the seriousness of this scene but their relationship is like every overdramatic teenage romance where the couple was always fighting in the halls on Monday and then making out against your locker on Tuesday. A constant cycle of arguments and OTT affection.

Him not getting off her car is so annoying and I would not have blamed her had she driven away the second he got down. Or even before that.

Do any of those other students not notice what’s going on with the screaming match? Or do they not care? Or are there a bunch of randos out of frame watching it go down?

I ended up glad they did the same technique as with Eva/Jonas of not hearing their conversation once he gets in the car, because really the words don’t even matter. It’s just a cycle of fighting and making up, lather, rinse, repeat. I like that they’re in the car which gives them a physical barrier and makes the audience feel more like outsiders. The music was pretty but kinda depressing and ominous which - yeah, sums it up.

Clip 4 - Is that the Fish Under the Sea Dance?

This musical performance is gorgeous but what school has the orchestra perform at a dance?  Isn’t it unfair to the kids in orchestra that they can’t just enjoy the dance? Unless they only perform for part of the night.

Props to the singer and her fantastic mermaid scale dress, though.

I see you, Poonam. I wish they’d have more sporadic appearances from her. She had more of a distinct personality than the theater kids and seems less like she should totally fade into the background.

Can Marlon ever get his ass somewhere on time? He keeps running late or ditching her for important events.

I love Josefina’s light-up hair. Give us the tutorial on that.

Kelsey did not send Daniel nudes which is definitely for the best, not just to preserve her dignity, but because teens have gotten in legal trouble for sending explicit pictures of themselves. It’s a misdemeanor for minors in Texas.

Her justifications for Daniel not going with her to the dance are depressing, jeez. She seems like the youngest Vilde of them all.

“Everyone is here with friends so it would have been very weird” cue three boy-girl pairs walking into frame.

It’s more on the nose to have Marlon texting right as Zoya talks about if someone wants to be with you they’ll make time to be with you, rather than to have Zoya give her boy advice in a separate scene, but at least they made the connection.

Kelsey: “Zoya, I don’t know how much you know about boys and dating…” Kelsey, one episode earlier: “It was like he went down on me in my mouth.”

Zoya goes to fix the Kelsey situation, which is nice, because while the message was sorely needed, the delivery could have been a little kinder.

Despite being Kelsey’s BFF and being a great cheerleader for her awkward dancing, Jo doesn’t seem to know how to be there for Kelsey in this Daniel situation. She’s been egging it on and enjoying it secondhand while ignoring the warning signs.

Did they mean to have Megan wearing black and Abby in white, or was that just a coincidence?

Is Abby’s friend Natalie on nunchucks?

I wish Julie would direct Abby to play the role less like the snotty queen bee from a generic teen movie. I know Ingrid wasn’t always the nicest person but Abby seems like a textbook mean girl trope (maybe just because American media is over-saturated with those), and even knowing their history I don’t get how she and Megan could’ve been friends. 

It’s not a high school dance until someone is crying outside the building and in the bathroom (which I’m guessing Kelsey has covered).

The reactions from the P-Chris fans hoping Jo would be a better guy this time around were pretty funny, no offense to any P-Chris fans. To be fair, he did seem to have more of a personalized approach to Megan, and I was kinda wondering if maybe Julie would swing more toward P-Jo/Meg this time around as a consolation prize for P-Chris/Eva not being endgame, but whoops, guess not.

I will give Penetrator Jo some credit, he does a decent job of seeming like a friendly, flirty, genuinely interested guy. By “some credit” I mean that were I an emotionally fraught teenage girl and not a TV viewer watching this scenario play out for the fifth time, I would probably fall for his caring and concerned schtick, not credit for him behaving this way, to be clear. Also while he’s laying it on thick, Megan clearly kisses him first.

Boy Jo revealed to be jackass with “why do you always lead me on like that” as if “don’t be a cocktease” in his first appearance wasn’t enough of a clue. Or you know, him having a girlfriend.

Not to mention adding “It’s real annoying” and then lurching into his happy boyfriend mode for Cleo without a hitch. This slick little shit.

This is random but with the aquatic theme of the dance, the first Cleo I thought of was Cleo the fish from Disney’s Pinocchio.

Jo all “We’re just talking” and being sure to add that Megan has a boyfriend. And hey babe, why don’t you have a girl-to-girl heart-to-heart with her? I’ll leave the two of you alone, see, I have nothing to hide, she doesn’t have anything incriminating to tell you.

I like the detail of Cleo calling Megan “Maggie” since it’s a reminder that yeah, she’s a stranger, this is a sweet but impersonal gesture, and there’s a lot she doesn’t know about the situation.

I know people have gotten on all the Evas for not going up to Vildes as they’re leaving the party (I think Italian Eva is the only one who talks to her), but I don’t think you can be too hard on Eva/Meg in this scenario. She’s thinking she’s been betrayed by her boyfriend and that her relationship is possibly over, the other dude who has been flirting with her has a girlfriend, and she just cheated. She’s too drained to deal with much else.

The moment of Meg and Marlon talking on their phones while looking at each other was pure cheesy teen drama and I kinda dug it. I didn’t care for the music choice, though - the song isn’t bad but it fit weirdly with the scene, like when Meg said, “My feet hurt,” and then the lyrics were immediately, “And it hurts like helllll,” lmao. Felt awkward.

Marlon has a lot to do to get on my good side but giving his ugly shoes to Meg and carrying her heels was a cute gesture.

Aha, Marlon was selling Adderall to Abby! Overall I think that’s a good change from him smoking weed as I’m pretty sure selling Adderall would have more severe consequences and it also fits with the theeeeeemes of pressure to succeed.

Also Meg seems surprised that Abby would use Adderall. This is far more incriminating to Abby as well, since she’s not just being a bystander to her brother’s weed transactions. Though probably nothing will come of that.

Meg being like “So you’re a drug dealer?” and Marlon being all, I’m not a drug dealer, I don’t hang out on street corners selling to random people - LMAO. Bro, you sell drugs, you’re a drug dealer. I think it’s probably an accurate teenage mindset, though. Middle-class white boy selling his prescription medicine to his classmates - doesn’t fit the shady connotations in his head, therefore can’t be a drug dealer.

So on the one hand, not to condone teenage drug dealing, but I can completely get how selling your meds would be a more tempting and satisfying option to earn some cash rather than say, getting a minimum wage job at McDonald’s or something like that. You would make more money with much less time working. And I get that Marlon would want to have some financial independence from his parents. But I’m not a huge fan of Marlon’s motivation being just that his parents don’t understand his music. It’s not that I think it couldn’t happen, it’s that it seems like, well … a TV cliche? Maybe it’s just one of those things I’ve seen so much of in teen media, the kid who loves music/art/dance/acting/creative pursuit and the parents who want them to take a more stable path in life. 

I kind of wish Marlon had a more topically relevant motivation for selling drugs. His family is struggling financially and he needs the money. College tuition is utterly ridiculous in this country so he’s trying to save up. I guess it doesn’t have to be that serious, but IDK. Like I said, feels a bit cliche.

General Comments:

This week’s best Facebook comment:

American culture truly is having your soundcloud boyfriend dealing adderall

Also at least one person accidentally wrote “Marlon” as “Melon” and I find that hilarious. GET IT TOGETHER, MELON.

The whole shit with the Instagram influencers posting about Skam Austin is so obnoxious and fake. Remember when original Skam received little to no traditional promotion because nothing word turn off teenagers than their parents telling them about this new show that was out? The stuff with the influencers is completely opposed to that strategy. It’s an inauthentic approach when Skam’s appeal lies heavily in its authenticity.

There’s also something to be said about whether this show is reaching teenagers, because quite a few of the newbies appear to be older, but that was inevitable considering Facebook’s losing teenage users and skewing older.

They need to rein in Kelsey a bit. I think the actress has potential, but they’re making her seem like a character who should be on a bad Disney Channel or Nickelodeon sitcom accompanied by a laugh track, not a real person. 

I love seeing the Skam Austin newbies ask where they can watch Skam and the OG stans rush in with 10,000 links. 

They didn’t post anything on Saturday, not even texts. Are they going to go on hiatus? This is where the break was in the OG S1, plus it’s episode 5 out of a probable 10 (since they cut the cabin episode). I think it’d be a bad idea to take a break now since they don’t want to lose momentum.

[prorevenge]

Wanna take over my wife's job after her maternity leave? get yourself pushed out of the company instead.

LTL, FTP. I have almost no direct involvement in this tale. I'm writing it on behalf of my wife.

Sorry for the wall of text... TL;DR at the bottom. This story happened (ended) two weeks ago.

Background:

We live in a country that needs a lot of improvement on laws, their application and enforcement.... we are a lot better than a few years back, but still sometimes people can get away with forging some types of documents, like medical records, education degrees etc. Also, english is not our main language, so job titles, degrees and other details are translated to their best equivalence.

According to our country's labor laws:

All female employees are entitled to 3 months paid maternity leave.

Employers, at their own expense, are expected to cover for the employees on maternity leave, usually with temp workers.

Severance payments are mandatory when firing employees (without justified cause... crime, fraud, etc) with more than 3 months on their jobs, so that's the time limit to be considered a temp employee.

Severance payment calculation is rather complicated, but for firing people employed 4 years or less, it usually boils down to about 4 months of salary.

To fire Pregnant women, employers have to pay them 6 months of salary on top of the severance payment they're entitled to.

If an employee quits voluntarily, they effectively forfeit all benefits previously mentioned.

My wife has been working for a non-profit for 10 years now. I don't want to give out much detail, but the company deals with, among other things, basic women's healthcare (first care ob-gyn, birth control, pregnancy tests, etc). The company has 3 locations within 10 or less miles from each other.

I own a small tech support firm and we've been offering services to this company for about the same time (hence my small involvement). We actually met through this professional relation. This is her second kid, my fourth... and first baby girl!

The main characters:

DW: My dear Wife - The main role.

TB: Temp Bitch, DW's nemesis/bane

DO: Director of Operations... Wife's boss lady.

AD: Administrative Director, Boss' Boss (also a lady FWIW)

On to the story.

DW is a very easygoing, introvert person. She can be shy when you first met her, and on first impression, she gives out a vibe of being a pushover. In reality, she takes no shit, from anyone, including (or specially?) me.

She was hired as the company's receptionist originally, but thanks to her hard work, ethics, and professionalism (which I've witnessed myself even before dating her), she's being promoted constantly.

Her apparent pushover personality has been a recurring theme on her job, since for years she worked as an office manager (in charge of overseeing the company's vehicles, managing the drivers, janitors, dealing with some external contractors, etc) out of the receptionist desk (this is a small to medium company).

Sometimes when a new manager was hired, they tried to make her run phone errands (set appointments, pay bills, etc) and other petty stuff (like serving coffee, etc) you usually have a low level secretary do, thinking she was only a receptionist.

She promptly called for a staff meeting every time, having DO set these assholes straight.

She foresaw the company's need of having a human resources manager, so she talked me into help her (financially and with domestic duties) get a masters degree in human resources 3 years ago (she's a business major). I contributed to the cost and did my best to take care of the kids and the house when she was in class. She graduated with very good grades, and the investment paid off. The position was created last year, following advice by external assessors, who promptly recommended the company to give my wife the job, with a significant pay raise involved. YAY!!!

A few months later we got pregnant again, so DW and DO hired this temp girl (Temp Bitch or TB) to cover for DW during her maternity leave.

DW was very weary on her last days of pregnancy when she trained the TB, and she may have commented how relieved she would be without work stress for a few months while enjoying our baby girl... TB probably got DW's pushover vibe as well.

TB turned out to be an opportunistic, backstabbing bitch that thought that she could take over DW's position... she also turned out to be somewhat stupid.

As a weird coincidence, my employees knew her! A few months prior, she was employed as an consumer electronic salesgirl on other company that uses our services, and they knew she was not in fact a human resources / business major as she claimed to be. She was a marketing major fresh out of university. At the time, my wife let it slide (didn't alert the company) as she was after all a temp employee, and expose her will mean DW would have to either scramble to vet and train another candidate in less than a week, or reschedule her c-section for a week later.

While DW was on leave, some of her coworkers started alerting DW in private, that the TB started to get more and more comfortable into DW's position. Among other things:

Overriding some of the directives and procedures DW had put in place, trying to implement her (often inadequate/wrong) own.

Giving employees advice and directions that directly contradict DW's instructions.

Giving hell to some of the suppliers the company and DW have been satisfactorily dealing with for years.

TB had the audacity to change the email footer on DW's computer, as well as wording on the emails themselves, to appear as she was the official HR manager, not DW. She did this on specific emails to certain employees and suppliers, changing it back when she emailed or copied the bosses... I know, this sounds very stupid as she's leaving written evidence easily proveable. Some of these emails were forwarded in private to DW by her coworkers.

This bitch is a class A sweet talker, so she convinced the bosses to let her stick around for another month after DW returned to work, to organize and help finish up some procedural handbooks my wife started writing (but were actually DO's responsibility). Her contract was renewed for another month so she could perform this very specific task. As this boundary was not defined in writing, she started to overstep it in every way she could:

1- Sign herself up on a training course on the company's dime.

2- Setting up onsite training courses for the staff (already quoted by my wife with other external providers), to take credit for the coordination effort... however she left loose ends. My wife decided to pick up the slack as letting it slide would have affect both the employees and the training company.

3- Telling my wife in several instances (in front of other employees) that she needed to stay after hours to finish up certain tasks pertaining to her position (as a way to mark territory/establish dominance?)

4- questioning my wife's decision (again, in front of other employees) about scheduling tasks and meetings, and her ability to keep up with them.

5- published a "before and after" manifest, detaling all the "improvementes" she made to the HR managing position, contrasting her tenure against my wife's.

6- treating representatives of various supplier companies unjustifiably like dirt, in a twisted/sick way to assert dominance, maybe? A particularly nasty phone call was overheard by AD.

7- Several other similar instances of these 5 examples.

Here's where DW got fed-up, and she started her Pro revenge. from each of the above instances these actions were taken (please match the numbers):

1- DW Contacted the training company to let them know that an error was made with the trainee's name, which should be the company's HR manager. So DW set the training course for herself (as it should have been from the beginning) and deferred it for a latter date. She let her bosses know but not TB, who showed up for the nighttime course only to find out she was not allowed to take it.

2- As DW had way more time interacting with the onsite training Contractor's company, on the training day the training supervisor came in looking for DW to help them set-up everything, afterwards commending her for all her effort taken to make the training day a success. TB left the room in a huff.

3 and 4- DW replying to TB right then and there, on each occasion, that she was in no way taking her precious family time to work after hours, and that she had enough ability to get the work done before 5pm that day... and then do exactly that, some times even with time to spare.

5 and 6- DW had a private meeting with DO to talk mainly about the "before and after" manifesto, as well as everything else. My wife's point of view was that the company should not have allowed all this to happen, unless of course they intended to fire DW and keep TB as HR manager. DO apologied profusely to DW, assured to DW that this was not the case at all, and told her that the AD, after overhearing TB's nasty phone call, decided she didn't wanted TB to be part of the company in any way, shape or form and comissioned DO to take care of it.

DO called TB to a private meeting on a friday, during which she informed her that her services were no longer needed. DO relied she was aware TB was past the 3-month mark, so she was entitled to some severance compensation. TB asked to be able to respond to this the next monday.

On monday, TB presented DO with a Positive Pregnancy Test (yes, you read that right) and told DO they now had to "negotiate", citing the 6-month salary compensation law for dismissing pregnant employees. TB expressed that she saw "no need for her to be fired", and she very much preferred to remain on the company as an employee. DO told TB that she needed to get back on her about this and scheduled a meeting for a few days later.

DO met with AD, who reiterated she felt TB should not be part of the company, so DO turned to DW to start the dismissal and compensation procedures.

Here's where my DW's revenge gets really Pro:

With the help of my coworkers, DW got more detail about TB previous employment and marketing major background, which allowed her to get publicly available info (from a job search/application website) about TB, which constituted irrefutable proof she falsified her credentials to get hired by the company in the first place. DW didn't even bothered to tell me about this at the time, as at the moment I was in the middle of a very stressful work trip.

Made a dossier of printed out emails on which TB was making herself known as the HR manager to lower level employees, suppliers and contractors.

DW met with DO, and presented her with all this evidence. DW said that it took a great effort to pry DO's jaw off the floor. DW stressed that it was in the company's best interest, that TB should be required to retake the pregnancy test within the company's healthcare facility.

As I'm sure you already guessed, tests came back negative, with no evidence of a recent miscarriage.

DO purposedly scheduled TB's meeting on the same day DW had to meet with company's employees on one of the other locations, so she didn't witnessed it, but she were told that TB somehow managed it to keep it together until she was showed the door. As it is part of her duties, DW knows for a fact that a resignation letter, signed by TB, is on file with the company, and that no monetary compensation whatsoever was paid to TB.

If you made it this far, again, sorry for the wall of text. Thank you for going thru it.

TL;DR: Temp worker try to run over my wife during/after her maternity leave, my wife uses the temp stupidity to royally fuck her instead.

(source) (story by echalopafuera)

[laptrance]

July 28, 2020

it’s been over two years since my last entry. so much has changed. to update March 8 2018 me:

you give up on job searching atm until 4/24/18. that’s when you start reaching out to all the promotion companies from kucr. planetary was the other promotion company you remembered besides terrorbird. cirstina was super nice and chill and said they just wrapped internships for the summer but to inquire again for the fall. 

you wait those months while still working at mcdonalds. you get good at it and things are second nature to you. you still have moments where you storm out, but you get better at controlling your temper. 

you check back in august and cristina says there are positions open in the fall. it was pretty easy as they accepted you right away. you do this bat shit crazy thing where you try to balance the two. planetary internship Tuesday Thursday Friday and McDonald’s the rest of the days. you even do opening shift during the weekends (4am-12pm).

you’re mostly quiet during your internship. you participate in riyl’s. you mainly talk to cristina while mailing. you don’t open up much until hayoung joins in november i think. mcdonalds is the same as usual, but your sleep schedule’s FUKED UP.

you hear in december that maria (who worked in publicity) is quitting. cristina encourages you to apply. you talk with adam and the interview tbh goes horribly. not like you didn’t have anything to say, but everything you said was wrong LOL. you also talk to george and ben and they lay out what press does but you dont catch any of that.

christmas office party happens and you drink a lot. you open up a lot to EVERYONE, iNCLUDING BEN about your love life (embarrassing) you’re obviously too drunk to drive home, but you stay over the night with nik and alison (goth bless their souls)

you check in with adam on the position occasionally until feb. 2019 when he breaks the bad news. the position’s filled. like how can you be surprised? but you’re still upset. you’re able to turn this as a positive to use your experiences to boost your resume.

you continue to work at mcdonalds and interview at places until you get a random email from adam exactly one year after you first emailed cristina about the internship. adam offers you the job. ofc you accept. you quit mcdonalds and start with planetary on may 1.

learning publicity is one hell of a learning curve. heck, you’re still learning how to do shit even now. but you’re thrown on the deep end with Luna. not your fault. not totally kristen’s fault. but that was a crazy client. 

anyways, your sleep schedule’s still fucked up because of your commute. but at least you have free weekends now! 

some highlights of 2019: you finally get a macbook! but you have a galaxy s9 as a phone lmfao. placements in The Line of Best Fit and Paste! you get absolutely entranced with warehouse raves. you literally go to at least once a month. falling in love with queen of jeans and linking up with their publicist Jamie Coletta (she’s super cool and the best at the game), going on two (2) dates with a really nice girl named sara. you got in your head and probably fucked that up. but it really wasn’t the time. christmas party 2019. same shenanigans but this time you don’t drink as much. you really look for places to move out to with ryan and he finds a house that angeli and linda live. two people are moving out and the rooms go for $500 and $600. you get the $500 room and are set to move in on Feb 16 2020. news of a disease called coronavirus is first detected in china. this will be important later.

oh 2020. what a shite year. if i told myself the things i’ll write down below i would not believe it. but here it is. everything that has happened so far in 2020:

first cases of coronavirus appear in washington on january. you’re not too concerned about it. 

you’re working this country artist aminah hughes and land a placement in american songwriter for January 31 (1st time!). there are some issues and they post it one day later, but you weren’t as attentive as you should’ve been over the weekend.

adam talks to you about it the following monday (2/3) in a really calm matter but you beat yourself up over it. so much so that on your way home, you totally don’t notice a pedestrian crossing galloping hills and eucalyptus and run them over. everything feels like a blur, but you’re able to talk to the police, karen, and kimberly (state farm) about it. you take tuesday-thursday off.

you move in (night before you saw bored lord and octo octa until 3am wtf). you don’t have a car (for obvious reasons), but you’re able to commute to work via bus/subway (which you would’ve done anyway cause you love public transportation lol)

you’re able to return to normal life mostly until middle march. cases of the newly named COVID-19 have spread throughout the united states and you hear of workspaces transitioning over to work from home operations. planetary soon follows suit. our last day in the office is march 13.

literally the week after you start wfh animal crossing new horizons comes out. that keeps you busy for like two, three months tops. it’s also a nice way to keep in touch with friends. 

your first therapy session happens on march 31. you’re able to talk about the accident, but it’s quickly directed to self-esteem. it’s an ongoing process, but you’re slowly advancing. it’s not linear, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Bandcamp establishes “Bandcamp Day”, 24 hour periods in which the site’s share of profits go directly to artists/labels. Started in April, will continue through the end of 2020. All the money I would normally spend on concerts goes here now. That and I fall to the hands of food delivery apps (door dash wins)

your campaign with Atta Boy gets going. first track premieres at Atwood Magazine (2nd time! [1st time was with sophia st. helen, another awesome client]). band’s super happy about it (even mr. josh brolin himself gave a shout out [bias ofc]). by the end of may you land their second single on THE MOTHERFUCKING FADER (1ST TIME OBVIOUSLY). 

everything else is going surprisingly well for the most part (except for elp, but i don’t wanna talk about those fucking idiots) despite the ever-changing landscape of music journalism. huge blogs are letting people go while smaller sites are remaining mostly the same. 

On May 25, George Floyd is murdered by Minneapolis police which sparks the biggest wave of activity in the Black Lives Matter movement since Michael Brown’s death in 2014. organizing/activism is still going on to this day (7/28). 

For me personally, I’m making a conscious effort to highlight Black artists on my Bandcamp days and general sharing of music. I also joined a book club (6/18) and read “Are Prisons Obsolete” in its entirety. We’re currently reading a comic series called Bitch Planet. Deep and meaningful conversations.

the family hears news of Lola’s declining health. June 23rd (Manila time) is the day she passes away. We’re all able to say our last goodbyes via facebook video call. this is the first time i see my dad cry.

funeral takes place on june 27th. we’re able to partake in the ceremony via zoom. the first and only funeral i “attended” online (so far).

I start “fixing” myself physically. I went to physical therapy from 6/8-7/7. the exercises do wonders to my knees (ty dr. bailey!). also saw a dermatologist on 7/10. really quick appt. kinda felt rushed imo, but i was given a special sunscreen that works so far? also recommended otc meds like claritin.

ended campaign with atta boy. really sad to see them go. currently coordinating with their new managers on a possible podcast and press setup. 

and that’s pretty much it! it’s a lot of shit, i know, but it happened all within 2 years. overall i’d say we were pretty successful in finding a big-girl job and MOVING OUT, WHICH I THOUGHT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LMFAO. as for the shit you were hung up on with angelica, you’re so much better now, but you think about the good memories from time to time. sometimes it gets you down, but you’re thankful for the memories (come through fallout boy LMFAO AHAHA FALLOUT AMIRIGHT) and you learned from your mistakes. maybe it will be another two years before i leave another update, might be less, might be more. 

but i’m extremely proud at how far i’ve come.

im proud of you, me.

[samdukewieland]

Stuck Inside Media Diary Week 5

I realized the last movie I saw in theaters was Little Women for the third time. Then that got me thinking about how I ranked my Top whatever movies from last year and inconsequential ranking things is. It was probably the movie that makes me feel the best; it and Knives Out were the two movies I saw the most in a theater last year and they were both the ones that I get excited talking about with people. Good flicks, you should check ‘em out. (I also re-learned recently that Emma Stone was originally supposed to play Meg who was played by Emma Watson. Had this happened, my brain would’ve collapsed due to trying to figure out how to balance crushes on Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern and Emma Stone all in the same thing).

Sunday, April 19

Deliverance, Boorman 1972

On the one hand there is no real way to prepare you for how awful the assault on Ned Beatty and John Voight scene is as well as having me wonder if this was actually a Vietnam movie masked in something about the destruction of the natural world (maybe it’s both or just one). On the other hand, I thought it’d be funny to compare the characters to this to the characters in American Pie, but there’s no Stiffler or Jim’s Dad in this movie, so it doesn’t completely work.

Mad Men, “Long Weekend”, “Indian Summer”, “Nixon Vs. Kennedy”, “The Wheel” [season 1 finale]

There’s two things I’ll never forget the first time I ran through the first season of Mad Men: 1. Thinking “is Don even good at his job? I don’t think we’ve even seen this guy even really do his job yet, how did he become partner?” and then “The Wheel happens”. 2. I had let one of my favorite History teachers borrow my DVDs (this would happen again in my life when I later lent my English teacher The Wire when I was a senior two years later) and when he finished the first season he and I talked about what dumb-dumb idiots we were because we hadn’t figured out that Peggy was definitely pregnant and were surprised by this revelation, while his girlfriend at the time figured it out instantly.

Parks And Rec, “Greg Pikitis”, “Ron And Tammy”

That these two episodes were on back-to-back was probably the moment in the public consciousness that Parks was the real deal. How could you not; I watch “Greg Pikitis” every Halloween.

The Last Dance, Parts 1 & 2

I can’t remember the last thing I watched in real time on the tv. It’s very possible, though I don’t think so, that The Last Dance might be quarantine great and in real life very, very good. It doesn’t really matter, because this thing is just crazy fun to watch, as a person who was not able to watch Jordan basketball and sometimes thinks that Gen Xers gets way too [whatever that Spongebob meme is where you capitalize every other letter in a sentence] about Michael Jordan. The music cues are God-tier.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Shows You Iron”, “Joe Pera Takes You To Breakfast”, “Joe Pera Takes You On A Fall Drive”

“Joe Pera Takes You To Breakfast” might be one of the funniest episodes of television I’ve seen in a long time. As someone who takes too much enjoyment in stream of consciousness humor, I might be too in the bag for this show. I certainly don’t know how to sell it to any of you, other than it might be the perfect counterpart to Review. That could just be that Joe Pera looks like an alt-universe Andy Daly or it could be that Forrest MacNeil could’ve, desperately, used a friend like Joe Pera if only just to see how they’d interact with each other.

Monday, April 20

Under The Silver Lake, Mitchell 2018 [as of now this is available on Prime]

I’m embarrassed that I caved into watching a stoner movie on 4/20, but I’m glad it was this. This weird, gross and beautifully shot weird little movie that really did some good work in reminding me that Andrew Garfield is good. People will argue that this broke his brain, when in reality it was those two embarrassing Spider-Man movies.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Shows You How To Dance”, “Joe Pera Talks You Back To Sleep”, “Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements”

So “Church Announcements” was the first episode of this show that I had ever seen, because I had three different friends recommend it to me because I had posted something about “Baba O’Riley” very off-handedly, not even knowing this episode existed. It’s probably the purest expression of joy and one of the most sincerely happy things I might have ever seen. I love this show so much.

Tuesday, April 21

The Birdcage, Nichols 1996 [as of now this is available on Prime]

This is a good reminder that Nathan Lane is insanely talented and easily one of the most undervalued performers alive. I wanted to watch a Gene Hackman movie and this was available and it’s pretty good. Sometimes plays shouldn’t be turned into movies, that’s my take here-what do you want from me.

Better Call Saul, “Something Unforgivable”

Safe to say Saul’s got the belt. I was listening to Greenwald and Ryan the other night and someone had throughout a hypothetical to them that if they could would they want Gilligan and the gang to to remake Breaking Bad now, and have that (essentially) be the spin-off from Saul instead of vice-versa. That then got me thinking about if there’s ever been a property that’s taken place within the same universe that waited almost a season and a half to introduce the character (or thing) that connected the two things? There’s probably some kind of sci-fi or fantasy story that nerds would be eager to inform me of and it’s called 2une or something like that. Cool if so! If not, then no one steal my idea, this could be huge.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Lights Up The Night with You”, “Joe Pera Talks to You About the Rat Wars of Alberta, Canada (1950–Present Day)”, “Joe Pera Answers Your Questions About Cold Weather” [Season 1 finale]

“Can you believe those jag-offs through a New Year’s Eve party with just one bottle of Disarooney” is something I just say out loud when I’m frustrated now. I stayed up until like 3AM last Tuesday wrapping up the first season.

Wednesday, April 22

The Stranger, Welles 1946 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

First Orson Welles movie. It was fine! I don’t really think it should’ve been an hour-and-a-half long, but I was also surprised that they were already making movies about Nazis escaping to the US in 1946, but I’m definitely not a historian and I’m sure a lot of things would surprise me about 1946. It’s also a public domain movie which is just kinda....weird and would probably piss off Orson Welles or maybe he’d be thrilled.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Hughes 1986 [as of now this is available on Netflix]

Maybe the best use of a Beatles song in a movie that doesn’t star The Beatles? I used to go back and forth on whether or not I like this movie, because so many people do like it and I used to be loathe to conform to non-controversial opinions. But something I think that gets really overlooked is how well this movie is shot-Hughes had a real eye for framing and blocking. Or maybe people talk about this all the time and I just haven’t cared to ever listen or seek it out.

The Plot Against America, “Part 2″

Mad Men,  [Season 2 premier] “For Those Who Think Young”, “Flight 1″

I had forgotten how GD disorienting this show can be when it goes out of its way to not tell you how much time has passed between each season (it’s like 15 months this time). That’s all I’ve got now, that and Duck Phillips: welcome back into my life, you sick son of a bitch.

Joe Pera Talks With You, [Season 2 premier] “Joe Pera Talks With You About Beans”, “Joe Pera Takes You On A Hike”

Thursday, April 23

Harold And Maude, Ashby 1971 [as of now this is available on Prime]

Another entry in the “I didn’t realize how many movies try to be this one” book. Really funny, and so shockingly dark, I can’t imagine how much people hated this when it first came out and how hard of a sell it would be to try and talk someone into seeing it. Probably what I liked most about it was how earned the sense of finding joy in life is in this movie, considering how cynical it is in depicting the fetishization guys tend to do with the notion of suicide. It’s quirky without being twee (if you want that, I guess go to Rushmore, a movie I adore, but definitely borrows heavily from this, something Anderson wouldn’t ever deny).

Mad Men, “The Benefactor”, “Three Sundays”

Harry Crane’s campaign to be the least liked person in Mad Men, you could argue, starts more-so here than it did in the finale of S1 when he cheats on his wife.

The Plot Against America, “Part 3″

I don’t think anything, Television-wise, has benefited less from the pandemic than TPAA. Of course it would happen to a David Simon show and maybe it’s a good thing, considering how the number of bad takes would greatly outweigh the number of good takes that would come about if there was some more attention on it. 

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Waits With You”, “Joe Pera Guides You Through The Dark”

I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did when they started demonstrating the different hair styles you can get when getting your hair cut. These episodes have somehow gotten goofier than the first season and it’s, uh, really good.

Friday, April 24

Parks And Recreation, “The Camel”

Top Chef, Season 17 episode 6

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “Lights Out”

Dan Goor & Luke Del Tredici is to Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Michael Schur & Aisha Muharrar was to Parks And Recreation.

The Beastie Boys Story, Jonze 2020 [available on AppleTV+]

As with any kind of retrospective, there’s a fair amount of yadda-yadda-ing and maybe not everything totally works with this live-documentary, but it’s so deeply Beastie Boys that I can’t help but just be so grateful that it exists. While it’s like a vaudeville symposium it is absolutely doubles as a love letter to a departed friend and immense talent. The worst thing that could happen is that it’ll just make you want to re-listen to the gods.

Mad Men, “The New Girl”, “Maidenform”

I just can’t believe that Chauncey exits the series the same episode that he enters.This was and still remains the turning point of Duck Phillips: terrible human (and kind of when he turns a little cartoonish).

Saturday, April 25

Parks And Recreation, “Hunting Trip”

Mad Men, “The Gold Violin”, “A Night To Remember”, “Six Month Leave”, “The Inheritance”, “The Jet Set”

Quite a run of episodes here for ole Mad Men here. Always love when they remind us that everyone really underestimates Ken Cosgrove (even himself). And as I was watching “Six Month Leave” it kind of hit me that this is an outlier episode of Mad Men. It’s so much of a whole that I find it hard to put one episode above another, but if I needed just an episode of Mad Men to watch at random like a year or so from now, this is one that would really stick out to me. A great farewell to a great Murray brother.

Bad Education, Finley 2019 [available on HBO Now/Go]

It sucks that HBO makes more bad movies than it does good, but when they’re good, man they’re really good. It hits some HBO movie bingo squares which are kind of eye-rolley to me, but all-in-all, this is a really outstanding little movie. It feels weird that it’s taken this long for Ray Romano to start carving out a character actor niche for himself, but I’m just happy we’re finally here! I saw someone compare it to or with Wolf Of Wall Street and as someone not from Long Island I feel confident in saying that they’re a helluva Long Island scum-bag (repetitive?) double feature.

The Plot Against America, “Part 4″

Was really hoping this was going to be the thing that made people remember that Winona is incredible and not Stranger Things, but that’d require like a dozen monkey’s paw wishes that I just don’t have. (What a world it’d be if The Plot Against America adaptation somehow eclipsed Stranger Things in terms of cultural significance) However badly I wanted that though, this has really been Zoe Kazan’s show-a quieter role than Anthony Boyle (who I am also just floored by) but more effective in how much internal processing she’s doing with this character.

Joe Pera Talks With You, “Joe Pera Takes You To The Grocery Store”, “Joe Pera Goes To Dave Wojcek’s Bachelor Party With You”

[haydenjjames]

Dear Diary, its been a moment

Let’s talk about my week shall we....

Hello old friend, I hope you’re doing well. Me? I could be better these last few weeks have been some of the worst my life but also some of the best times iv’e had this week. A lot of things have happened this week, to be completely honest I dot know where to start. 

Let’s start with today. Today, I went to meet this guy, he’s called Callum, i’ve known him for quite a long time however we never spoke… like ever, the only reason I knew him was through a girl I was friends with. They went out together a long time ago and when I was friends with the girl they were going out so I had only really seen him if I had met her outside of school and they were together. I don't know why that was so hard for me to say, basically I knew him through an old friend because they went out. Okay good we have got that awful explanation out the way. Back to my point it was a few months ago that some how we had connected on facebook and we started talking. We had spoken a lot about his past, which I won’t go into thats his business, but I really got on with him. So today was the first time that we had met together one on one, and I really enjoyed myself. I'm an extremely nervous person when I first meet someone alone for the first time, but when I met up with him and as soon as I saw him I just felt so comfortable and honestly it was a lovely feeling. Me and Callum met in town I had drove to my aunties, I assumed he had got the bus into town and we had met outside the old church, I always joke how it would fall down I entered it started because my auntie would always say it to me and I found it really funny, back to Callum. We met outside the church and he was talking to this gentle man about Leamington (a neighbouring city) I didn’t really listen the conversation, didn’t want to be that person who eavesdrops. So when he is finished he started talking to me about where we were going to eat and how he had worked there and at the shop on the corner and the place just before it. When we got to playwrights (where we were eating and where he used to work) we sat down on the couches and waited for a table and he was talking about everything that was going on in his life and his music gigging bands etc. and how he had made these drums out of an odd thing and how he was really proud of doing it and it was the cutest thing ever! We got our table and sat down, opposite each other it just felt right. When I talk to someone I dont like to look them in the eye because it makes me feel comfortable but the whole time we were talking to someone I was looking at him in the eye and him me and it was just such a strange feeling for me to not feel uncomfortable, but I liked it. As we were talking he just made me feel like he actually cared. We had our food we talked for a good hour or two and then we had to go because he had band rehearsals and that was that! That was the first time meeting Callum one on one, and I really enjoyed myself. He wouldn’t let me pay tho, I said I was paying next time. 

Whilst we are on the topic of boys I’ll just update you since the last time we spoke, I haven’t really spoken to “him” I dont remember if I used his name, but I haven’t really spoke to him as he’s been busy with his jobs flying all over the world lol, he is currently at the time of me writing this on a cruise in the… Caribbean, I think. But yes I hope me and him get to meet up again it would be nice to seen him. 

Right then, let’s start at last Saturday, so I took the weekend off because it was my birthday on the Sunday so the saturday I had completely free apart from a halloween party I was going to in the evening. It was a friend of a friends and I had been invited mdi was going with another friend. So I pick my friend up, I go and get something to eat and drop her at her boyfriends as she had forgotten something. As we are driving to the party we get to a junction where there are two lanes, one to turn left and one to go straight on, I say to my friend how I hate the junction as we pull up in the lane to go straight on. A car pulls up next to me with their indicator on to go left, so naturally I assume they are going left the lights change to green and we go so I go straight on and so does this car so they end up hitting the side of my car and damaging the paint work of the passenger door (and possibly denting it) so at this point I'm like what is going on so I know that I cant stop in the junction so I drive on and there is a car behind and then the car that collided with me behind that so I slow right down to make the car behind go round and the car I collided with his flashing me and I was already indicating to pull over, so anyways she gets out the car and I ask if she’s okay and straight of the gate she says “no you just fucking crashed into my car” as soon as she said this I was pissed but I was like you know what hun I ain’t got time for this, I give her my details she takes photos of her and my car she gets in her car and I wait for ages for her to leave and that just put me in a sour ass mood for the night. 

I tried to forget it had happened for the sake of my enjoyment at the party that I was heading to, I did quite enjoy it but I just didn’t feel like I belonged, just cause I only knew 3 people there, well I knew 4 but i’ll talk about that lil bitch in a minute. But me and my friends had sat in the kitchen cause they were paying a drinking game and I dont drink, I couldn’t drink cause I was driving but I dont drink anyway and my friends weren’t drinking cause they had work the next day so it was pointless joining in with the game. We spent a good 3/4 hours at the party and there was a girl there that me and my friend knew from school and she wasn’t the nicest of people to my friend but me and this girl got on fairly well, the WHOLE time we were there she completely ignored us everyone else said hi asked how we were etc she even looked directly at us and didn’t say a word, I mean how rude. It made me laugh when she looked at us cause me and my friend looked at each other like wtf was that about. 

The next day, on my 21st birthday I spend 3 hours on the phone to the my car insurance people about the car I spoke to 3 different people and two of them said that I would have to pay the full excess and then one said I would only have to pay what it would cost, I got the bill the other day and I didn’t have to pay my full excess, only what it cost. But other than that I had a nice birthday, when my friends had finished work al three of us when out for ice cream at place called sprinkles that I'd never been to and I found my favourite smoothie of all time, I don’t remember the name but the flavours were peach, passion fruit and mango, it was gorgeous!

Lets backtrack, the Friday before the halloween party I had my hair bleached and dyed grey and for the longest time I've wanted to have grey hair I think its just cause its a colour that I've never had before. I did it for the halloween party for the character that I went as. I just love having a different colour hair to my natural colour I just think its so cool how within 2 hours I can go from having dark blond/ light brown hair to bleach blond hair… it is surreal to me, the hairdresser also found out about my instagram and the makeup I do cause I was editing one of the photos for it and she said how cool it was and asked me about it which was nice.

Now we are jumping back to recent events, on Thursday I go out shopping and I had a text from my mother saying that the washing machine was leaking, (the pipe at the back where the waste water goes). So when I gets home and have something to eat I go to sort it out… the last time it was easy we just used the plunger in the sink and managed to push the blockage out, however this time the washing machine wouldn’t drain and the sink would where as last time nothing would drain at all, so it was really odd! So we took basically all the pipes out I had to cut the back of the cupboard to get to the pipes to take them out and the blockage turned out to be after the sink and was the dishwasher so I still don’t understand how the sink was draining but the washing machine wasn’t… either way we sorted it out and its been fine since, thats 3 different times i’ve had to sort a blockage out… I'm basically a plumber.

Rewinding back to last Tuesday. Monday was my aunties birthday and her niece had been texting me all week about taking her out for her birthday for afternoon tea, and it was going to be a surprise and I kept my end of the bargain but in my birthday card that she had sent me she had said that my birthday present was also afternoon tea, which we agreed (she didn’t know what to get me cause I've got everything I want), and when I was leaving my aunties on the Sunday of my birthday I had forgot to take that card the ONE card that I should have made sure had, I forgot. So I get home and I have a txt off my auntie saying about how her niece was taking me out for afternoon tea so I had to come clean and tell her but I made sure that she knew that she had to act like it was a surprise in a way I'm glad that she found out cause it took a lot of pressure off of the day and she was able to get ready the way she would have wanted to go somewhere nice. They come they surprise her its all fun. 

When we get to the place where we were having afternoon tea we get seated in the conservatory and we had a view the garden which have a river running through and a small bridge over the river in the summer it would be absolutely ideal for a wedding it was really quite lovely. When the food come there was an assortment of cakes, we all got a choice of one sandwich (they give you like 4 mini sandwiches of that type) so we all chose different ones so that we could try them all, I had chosen the ham and English mustard, it was delightful! I also tried a beef with horseradish sauce, I had never tried horseradish sauce so I was unsure but I tried it and I really enjoyed it! We had out scones and cakes which were also lovely and then we sat and talked for a little bit and went home and it was a really good time I genuinely enjoyed myself, was starting after though it didn’t fill be up at all. 

hugs Hayden xox