All You Need is Love. Right?

First of all, this is SOTL's 60th post, so hooray for that! In order to celebrate the occasion, I'm kicking it up a notch and blogging about something more serious: gay marriage.

This has been a hot topic in the media recently, when Miss California stated she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman during the Miss America pageant. She was met by a chorus of boos, and since then, has been the source of debate since.

I'm having trouble with this, since I believe in honesty and free speech. Miss California was completely truthful in her answer, and for that, I should respect her. As much as I disagree with her beliefs, she has every right to express them. Many are talking about stripping her of the crown, which is taking it a step far.

However, I can't help but feel shocked and saddened by her opinions. In an era where so much progress has been made - for instance, America voting in a black man as their president - anti-gay movements are far too common. As it stands, only four states (Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa and Massachusetts) recognize gay marriage in America, two of which only legalized it in 2009. Considering how America is supposedly the land of the free, this is dismal.

I'm proud that my country (Canada) recognizes gay marriage. I really wish Stephen Harper would leave it alone. I may be biased, since I vote Liberal, but I stand by Paul Martin's inital decision to legalize gay marriage. His own personal beliefs did not support it, but Mr. Martin had the initative to recognize that religion has no place in politics, and that banning gay marriage goes against the rights and freedoms of our citizens. I wish world leaders had this same mindset.

Love is love. Why does it matter who is marrying whom when they're in love? Does it really make that much of a difference if it's a man marrying a woman or a man marrying a man? I personally don't think so, and that some think it does matter is almost laughable. I know it's a serious matter, but to think that people are so close-minded and prejudiced to put a limit on love, well...it's almost too ridiculous to comprehend.

America, you need to shape up. You're doing a poor job at being the "leader of the free world."

Love,
your friendly neighbour to the north.

YAY! (Or, a Moment of Extreme Geekiness)

I JUST WON SEASON ONE OF BMW ON EBAY!

I've been looking for it everywhere, and most places are selling it for like, $70.00+. But I won mine at just over $40! Hooray!

I'm guess it'll take a while to ship, since the seller is in Hawaii, but I so don't care.

Go me!

(I told you I was being geeky.)

That Home (Video of the Week #6)

Hmm. Apparently I only updated yesterday. which is technically correct. But it was really Tuesday night for me, since I hadn't gone to bed yet. Just so you know, I'm not a keener. (I'm more of a procrastinator!)

This is my new obsession. I've probably listened to it, like, 30 times already. I'm going to buy it on iTunes tomorrow because it's so incredibly wonderful and amazing.




*Sighs, then replays*

Love it!

"This was given to me when I stole it from my father." (If You Can't Be With the One You Love, 5.18)

Hooray, another Boy Meets World recap! This brings my total up to two, which I must apologize for. But I came across this classic ep and decided it would be a great one to bring back the recaps. Since my summer vacation's about two days away, I'm going to try to recap once a week. But I make no guarantees! In the meantime, I present to you...a recap.

Episode Overview:

So on this Very Special Episode, Cory realizes that no one wants to hang out with him because he's become a drag since he and Topanga broke up. Upon finding out he was blacklisted to Kimberely Susson's party, Cory decides to take some iniative. He crashes the party and becomes the life of it, because - and are you ready for this? - he gets drunk. He easily gets Shawn to join him, and quickly they get pretty shmammered. They convince a bum to buy them beer, but they quickly get caught. Alan yells at them and blames Shawn, who covers for Cory, and tells them they need to spend time apart. Cory confesses, but the punishment still stands.

At school a few days later, Shawn shows up to class drunk and makes a scene. Mr. Feeny throws him out of the class, and Cory follows him home. At the apartment, Shawn starts drinking a beer and confesses he's been drinking all week. Things escalate quickly when Jack, Angela and Topanga show up. Jack tells him not to drink, but Shawn says he doesn't have a problem, so why is everyone on his back about it. Angela tries to get Shawn to talk privately but he rejects her, and accidently shoves her against the door. As Shawn leaves, he realizes....he has a problem.

Shawn apologizes to everyone, and all is forgiven. Since this is a Very Special Episode, there's no subplot.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: The Good

• All kidding about the Very Special Episode aside, it's actually a great one, and a classic episosde to boot. Boy Meets World often has a strong message or lesson to present, and as always, they were able to do an underage drinking episode in a different way than many other shows of its kind. Kudos to the writers.
• Drunk Cory and Shawn. Need I say more?
• Yes, I do. They peed on a cop car! And Shawn walks on his hands randomly. It's all quite hilarious, their drunk scenes. It's something you need to watch though in order to understand, so do it!
• Yay, Jack & Shawn-ness! I love their interactions as brothers, especially when Jack is trying to be a good older brother to Shawn. I wished they'd developed their relationship more and given them more storylines. After Chet dies in season six, we don't see much of them, and that's unfortunate.
• Angela. She was very likeable in this episode, and this is coming from someone who is on the fence about her.
• We get more on the Hunter family history: Jack's mom left Chet because he was an abusive alcoholic, and Jack gets mad at Shawn for drinking because alcoholism is in their family. That's so much better than the "oh, we're underage and it's wrong!" lesson that a lot of shows would go for.
• Shawn gives Mr. Feeny an apple as a way to apologize, and it's adorable.
• Alan was sort of a jerk for assuming Shawn was the culprit, but I like that he was man enough to own up to it and apologize for it as soon as he realized his mistake. He's a pretty cool dad.

The Bad

• Eric's not in the episode!
• Topanga was kind of annoying. She just...rubbed me the wrong way.
• And why did Topanga get an entire fruit basket from Shawn? If anything, Angela should've gotten it.

The Ugly

Nothing! As I said, this is a classic episode.

Thoughts on the Episode:

One of my personal favourites, mainly because of the drunken Cory and Shawn scenes and because of the Jack and Shawn/Hunter family developments. Lovely!

Random Things About This Episode:

This is one of the three episodes Disney doesn't air, because they depict underage drinking. Um, the hell? The point of the episode was that drinking was wrong and they learned to not do it again! If they were promoting underage drinking, I could understand it. But this is a good lesson for kids to learn, so why the eff does Disney try to censor this kind of stuff? Stupid Disney.

Episode Grade: A+ for being a series classic.

Favourite Quote:

I was going to put flowers in that [empty whiskey bottle] and present it to Our Manga as a token of my 'steem.

Wait a minute Cory, you just called her Our Manga!!!

No, not Our Manga. My Manga!

I'm so excited! I'm so...scared! (Video of the Week #5)

Everyone's favourite scene from one of the best episodes ever of Saved by the Bell. Jessie gets addicted to caffeine pills, but the way Zack and the gang react, you'd think she was shooting heroin or something. Unfortunately I couldn't get a clip of the whole scene - the only one I found had the video embedding turned off, which sucks major ass. Still, I present to you the chilling moment where Jessie realizes she needs help...




"You mean you really are on drugs?" Haha, ohhhhh my.

Wanna watch the entire episode? Click here to watch Jessie go down the slippery slope that is caffeine pills!!!

I think I'm going to have to recap this episode. It's priceless.

In other 90s sitcom news, I've been watching episodes of Boy Meets World again, and you know what that means. Yes, more recaps! It's only a matter of choosing which episode to recap, since there are a lot to choose from. Almost too many, actually, but I'm not complaining.

We Need Caffeine! (Video of the Week #4)

I've been on a Backstreet kick lately, and I don't care who knows it! I fell in LOVE with the guys ten years ago, and you know what? I'm still a fan. They put on a great show, their music is fun, and they're all pretty damn cute. Best of all, they're pretty damn funny (sometimes without even trying...). So I present to you some Backstreet Bloopers, courtesy of Nick for the most part.




Too funny!

Are You a Follower?

Everywhere you go these days, you see people talking about Twitter, the "new Facebook." I believe it's a social networking site. I signed up for it, just to see what the fuss was about. And really - what's the big deal? I'm either not getting it at all, or it's really not all that.

It got me thinking, though, about some of the Internet trends of the past. I tried to come up with a chronological list of really popular Internet trends, and this is what I came up with:

1. ICQ. To this day I can remember the "uh-oh!" sound it made. I really never got into it that much, but I was using it before it faded into oblivion. ICQ came out around 1996.


2. MSN. It was launched before ICQ, back in 1995, but I don't remember it being all that popular with my generation until a few years later. I think it started growing popular around grade seven or so (1997/1998).


3. Online diaries. Sites like LiveJournal and Free Open Diary became really popular around the early 2000s. I have accounts on both of these sites, and do update sporadically.


4. MySpace. Launched in 2003, MySpace was huge. To some degree, it still is. I didn't really get into it, and I only recently made an account in order to join a tribute to Afton. I don't use the site for any other purpose.


5. YouTube. Thank God for YouTube. That's all I have to say. This became popular around 2005/2006 and I still love it to this day.


6. Facebook. Come on, who doesn't have Facebook? The site was launched in 2004, but I didn't see it become incredibly popular until 2006/early 2007. I was among the first of my friends to join, and I don't know if that makes me cool or not.


7. Twitter. 2008/2009. I really don't see what the big deal is. I don't see myself using it.

That's all I could think of - I could be missing something. According to this list, I am indeed a follower. But of the seven, I was only really into 3: MSN, YouTube and Facebook. My need to update my online journals comes and goes, so I don't really include it on this list.

I'm interested in seeing what the next Big Thing is...