Guilty Pleasure Snow Days

Last week I had the pleasure of having not one, but two days off from college. Tthe weekend before that we were trapped inside of our dorm because of the 28.5 inches of snow Philadelphia got. Being trapped inside because of the snow is the perfect excuse to watch a ton of TV.

Lately, I've taken to watching "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" after we discussed it in my Tweens and Teens class. I had seen a couple episodes before that, but it reminded me that it was out there and almost all of it is on the internet (on ABCfamily's website as well as Hulu). Given that I now had plenty of time to watch TV, I decided to do some catching up.

It's not that it's the worst television show out there acting-wise, but it's pretty bad. Ashley (Amy's sister) always makes me laugh. As my roommate pointed out, she hardly ever blinks. Sometimes the story lines are just awful as well.

One of my favorite lines from Ashley is, "Why can't you be like normal parents and just get addicted to internet porn or something?"

So what's your TV guilty pleasure?

(Image courtesy of ABCfamily)

Favorite Posts Of The Week

How was everybody else's week? I've been dealing with the stomach flu for most of it so I'm just looking forward to when it's over.

Every Sunday, I'm going to try and post my favorite blog posts of the week. Here they are, in no particular order:

1.Sealed with a Mixed Tape

2. Polaroid Scarves

3. Sleep Talking Man

4.Fudge Brownies

I had another one to share, but it appears the blog has disappeared... :(

Feel free to link me to your favorite blogs! I love finding new ones to read!

The Evil, Evil Snow

In light of ruined plans from the snow storm, I've been watching Gilmore girls to try and lighten my mood. I'm starting with "Women Of Questionable Morals" where Lorelai throws a fit about the snow because it's ruining everything for her.

I think later maybe I'll make my way into watching some of the earlier episodes, including "Love, War & Snow." Maybe it'll help cheer me up from this snow funk.

So what TV/Movies are you watching if your stuck in the snow like I am?

Why, sometimes, I really love college courses

Because they let me watch cool TV shows. As I've mentioned before I have this cool class this semester called "Teens and Tweens" where we discuss that age group, how they're portrayed in movies and TV as well as how movies and TV affect them. This week's assignment involves watching a PBS special entitled "The Merchants of Cool" and "My So-called Life" and a little bit of "Dawson's Creek." I've already saw all of "My so-called life last semester and really enjoyed it. I'm a little sad though that I left my Dawson's Creek DVDs at home and therefore I can't watch all of an episode (my teacher was only able to find parts of an episode online.

I really miss Dawson's Creek. Watching it made me want to go out and buy the other seasons. I really miss it. I also really love My so-called Life. I just liked that none of these people really seemed to have their lives 100 % together and nobody was perfect. Although I didn't really like her from the start, I ended up really Sharon's character in the second half of the season. I was really glad that Angela ended up spending some time with her.

What's your favorite TV show from the 90's?


Also, thanks to everyone who voted in the poll. I'll definitely be working in including some more Glee (especially once it goes back on TV), Veronica Mars, and HIMYM of course.

Procrastination Strikes Again: Office Style

Although I'm at the library and supposed to be working on my Newsworthiness paper, I thought I'd take some time to blog about the next TV show I've decided to tackle: The Office (US version, although I do plan on at least testing out the UK version).

For the longest time, I couldn't stand The Office. I didn't see what other people saw in it and I just didn't find it funny. Then, over winter break (during which I apparently was nothing but bored--see my HIMYM obsession) I caught some of Season 2 on TBS with my boyfriend. It must have been a really funny episode, because I kind of fell in love with it.

When I came back to college, my roommate told me that all of the Office was available on Netflix's Instant Watch. So last night, I finally got to watching some of the episodes. I even rewatched the episode that originally made me fall in love with it: "The Fire".

This is the episode that first made me love Dwight's character. I just found the image of him exaggerating how bad the fire was by crawling on the floor with the fire extinguisher very funny because there was only a tiny bit of smoke coming from the office's kitchen. Also, his attempts to win back Michael's affections were very amusing. Dwight (the boss's "pet") only loses his affection after Michael learns that the temp, Ryan Howard (I always think Phillies when I hear his name--I can't help it) went to business school. He begins to admire him on such a creepy level that only he could. What I love most about this episode is at the end, when Dwight discovers Ryan is responsible for the fire, and then Michael and Dwight sing "Ryan started the fire" (to the tune of Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire") for the rest of the episode. Once again, Dwight is the boss's "pet" he always aspires to be.

It also surprised me to learn that the guy who plays the temp, BJ Novak, wrote this episode. I think he did an excellent job, and it definitely makes him respect him more. I'm definitely going to be watching much more of the office in the future.

What episode(s) made you fall in love with your favorite TV show?

(also, please vote in the poll so I know what TV shows I should be posting about more often!)

Osama Bin Laden Likes "Glee"

Who knew, right?

While searching for a topic to do a newsworthiness assignment on my "Writing for Journalism" class, I came across this wonderful article on NewsArse, a UK spoof news and satire website, about how Bin Laden accidentally recorded himself singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" and declaring his love for Glee.

The article says,

"Then, as the tape comes to the conclusion, the stop button is not completely depressed and Bin Laden announces his love for new FOX TV series ‘Glee’ which is playing in the background, before singing along to the hit track from the show, “Don’t Stop Believin’”.

Also quoted in the article is a US security spokesperson who mentions why the actual recording may have ended up recorded over this:

“It sounds like he might have taped over an old Al Qaeda karaoke night. Money is obviously tight, and so they’re recycling, I suppose we should applaud them for that.”

If anything, this article certainly brightened my day. But how do you feel that Osama Bin Laden also likes one of the hottest TV shows?

I know I may have found just the topic for my newsworthiness paper. EDIT: It appears that only the satire site that I found this on is reporting this. I thought it would make a good unusualness story, but I guess not. I'll keep checking back though for the next couple hours just to make sure. For now, the Haiti Telethon seems like a good topic.


Source article and source for image: Osama Bin Laden accidentally records himself singing along to TV show Glee

American High

Recently in my Teens and Tweens class we were told to watch the movie "American Teen". While I was on the IMDB, I found that many of the people who saw the movie thought the TV series "American High" was better. Here's the post I made at my class blog:


While I was reading about American Teen on IMDB after viewing it, a lot of the members discussing the movie thought that it was a rip-off of the PBS series called American High that ran from 1999-2000. Like American Teen, American High followed 14 Illinois high school students who were mostly Seniors (instead of just 4). Also, the director gave each student their own camera to record video diaries as well as shoot some of their live on their own, which allows for a lot more interesting footage and a more documentary feel than the cartoons sometimes presented in American Teen. I was wondering if anybody had seen the show or are at least interested in it. On this blog (http://tenpast.blogspot.com/2009/04/american-high.html) , a person who recorded all 13 episodes on videotape has posted some clips of some of the episodes.

In addition to getting more coverage because of being a TV series instead a single, 2 hour long movie, the students seem to be less stereotypical than those presented in American Teen (although the students chosen turned out to have more depth, originally they were presented to us as simple stereotypical characters: the jock, the geek, the homecoming queen, and the artsy girl). Take for instance, the blog's description of Pablo:

"Born in Ecuador and moved with his mother to the U.S. when he was young. His mother's been divorced twice, and he lives with her and his young half-sister. A talented writer, poet, and photographer, he's also well-known amongst school administrators for his frequent troublemaking and drug involvement. In a surprising turn of events, near the end of the series, he considers enlisting in the Marines instead of going to college next year."

The beginning of the first episode also portrays Morgan as a teenager who believes that teenagers should act truly reckless, just like we discussed in class as being mentioned in the article we read.



So what do you think of the show based on the clips on the blog? Would you want to see more? Do you think it's better, more realistic portrayal than American Teen?