#only for Millennial to suddenly be an insult again but from the other direction

[walkawaytall]

I have recently seen “Millennial” thrown around as an insult by younger generations and, look, I think generational wars are stupid because a lot of times what the older generation is declaring to be a blight on humanity brought about exclusively by the younger generation is just lack of life experience that said older generation has somehow forgotten they, too, once suffered from. But for this particular issue, I so just want to look every child and teen and twenty-something that is using “Millennial” as an insulting adjective in the eye and say, “Bb, the Boomers already did this for like twenty years, and they did it via newspaper headline: just declaring that Millennials ruined everything and were the worst like it was a fact. Our own parents and grandparents handed us participation trophies we never wanted and certainly never asked for, and then turned around a decade later and told the world we were morally deficient for accepting them. Your implications that we’re dreadfully uncool have no power here. We are dreadfully uncool. We’re in our thirties and forties.”

But, like, that would take a lot of work and I am, as we all heard for two decades straight, a member of the laziest and least-motivated generation to ever exist, so it wouldn’t be very on-brand for me to put forth that much effort.

[nickelodeon-disneyreviewed]

16 Wishes Disney Channel Original Movie Reviewed

Because sure, I can post my most recent review, but it’s kinda lame for a first Tumblr post so have this half-year old review of a nearly decade-old DCOM instead.

16 Wishes DCOM Reviewed22 today, happy birthday sweetheart! What is it? Well, that's actually an interesting question.... It's classically thought of as a DCOM...even though strictly technically speaking it isn't (yes, that's right, it means Disney Channel's official Facebook page is wrong on this!) It's really a direct-to-DVD movie that Disney Channel just happened to pick up on very, very early during the production stage (before they even decided on a lead, hence how Debby became involved) due to Disney Channel's previous relationship (and ongoing relationship, for that matter) with Mar Vista studios through a number of actual DCOMs before and since. See folks, only on this blog will you learn new facts and grow your brain right in the introductory minutiae of each and every blog post! Where did it air? Well, again, continuing the above it's actually a bit complex. Technically it did indeed premiere on Disney Channel first, but it was originally intended for DVD sales/streaming to be the primary means of distribution. Of course now it's as closely associated with the network as any other DCOM and other than directly streaming it or getting the DVD it's the only place on "traditional" television you'll find it. Who stars in it? Most prominently, Debby Ryan, who became attached to the project as soon as Disney Channel decided to throw money at it. Jean-Luc Bilodeau plays second-billing Jay - you may recognize Jean-Luc (no, not that Jean-Luc) from not only the later Mar Vista-produced DCOM Zapped! but also from the somewhat short-lived Canadian/UPN (remember that network? Probably not) production Kyle-XY as the title character. Anna Mae Routledge is Celeste "the birthday fairy" and...yeah, this is actually the biggest role she's been in (she's been in another movie we've done a mini-review on...Eurotrip, maybe?) The only other notable role is Karissa Tynes as Krista. Abby's mom is played by the same actress who played an FBI agent in...Snakes on a Plane. Yeah, really. The principal is also "Chevron Guy" from Stargate: SG-1. There's also this really gorgeous ginger with these Marianas Trench-deep blue eyes but...uhh, we'll get to that at the end I guess. Why are we reviewing this? ...well, see, there are three or so key events that lead to the creation of this very blog, and 16 Wishes is one of them. One of those events would be of course the creation of GirlMeetsWorldReviewed.Blogspot.com which directly inspired the creation of this blog. But of course there'd be no point or even capability to make this blog without material to fill it up with. That's where 16 Wishes and other things come in. Another of those events, by far the most important one, is Phineas and Ferb - or more specifically, when I just happened to chance upon Phineas and Ferb (The Chronicles of Meep specifically - I need to, like, send flowers to Povenmire and Marsh for that one, it was a real chance of fate that happened to be the first episode I saw as it was superbly excellent if not outright sublime) one night when I was desperately searching for new programming to watch. And as I describe in both my Jessie and Liv and Maddie retrospectives, this was actually critical timing because at the time I was just a few weeks off from having my ex-fiancee break up with me and less than a week from recovering from cancer-removing surgery. And not only was Phineas and Ferb the perfect TV visual comfort food at the time, but it was an immediate gateway to more visual comfort food on the network and by extension Nickelodeon (the first episode of anything I've ever watched on Disney Channel aside from The Chronicles of Meep - immediately after the Chronicles of Meep, in fact - was the second replay of the then-premiere episode of Good Luck Charlie's T-Wrecks and given the emotional state I was in, I was actually really blown away by just how well done an all-inclusive family multi-cam sitcom it was - and that was immediately followed up by the second replay of the premiere of Jessie's Gotcha Day which, well, if you want to delude yourself that Jessie is a better show than it is there are few better episodes than that to dive into). Now, here's the thing - even at that point after about a month of watching I was still on the fence about the actual quality of Disney Channel shows and Jessie especially. By that I don't mean I would've given up watching the network forever and never ever speak of the great embarrassment of being an allegedly grown-ass adult watching Disney Channel, but my viewing habits probably would be a lot like they are today - oh hey, Good Luck Charlie's on, yeah I like that show. Oh hey it's Phineas and Ferb. Oh, hey Jessie's on...I wonder what Rick on Pawn Stars is trying to rip off today. But what ended up being the real tipping point to being dedicated as an allegedly grown-ass adult to this network and becoming a Jessie super-fan (or at least the closest thing that passes for it) is this movie. I think what really resonated with this movie, again given my emotional state, is the back half where Abby finds herself turned into an allegedly grown-ass adult. Even when you're in your early 20s (as Abby finds herself), well...I'm just going to quote the speech Abby's dad gives: But being grown up is different than dreaming about it, isn't it? We understand. Of course! You're scared that your childhood is over and with it all the best times of your life! You probably wanna turn back that clock and start over? Boy I know how that feels! ...and being in my 20s...and already having been engaged in marriage, and then seeing all that blow up in my face, and then finding out I have cancer, and then dropping out of school over it...yeah, that shit gets overwhelming. You spend a lot of time thinking about how not long ago all you needed to do was wake up and go to school and everything else is provided for you, and you all of a sudden find yourself in that same situation, just minus the school, and at least just old enough so that it all feels familiar but at the same time a bit weird. Nostalgia is not perfect, and it can even be a dangerous thing - I've dedicated very large portions of this very blog about how nostalgia effectively stunted if not outright ruined Girl Meets World from its very conception. But we keep coming back to it because it's comfortable. Girl Meets World was greenlit and conceived, arguably, because it was a return to a very comfortable concept, a concept that was successful in its heyday and it was thought would be successful because that previous success had grown itself into its fanbase to provide comfort (again, Christian and Sean have talked about the comfort aspect of the original show). And when you're in a position where comfort starts being medicine, nostalgia is a very powerful thing to go back to. My point being, girls who were 16 but accidentally wish themselves to be 22 as they walk out of a store dressing room and wishing they can just go back to school and live with their parents again and guys who actually are 22 (well, older than that even) but got kicked out of their fiancee's life so hard they apparently literally got cancer over it and had to move back in with their parents have a lot in common with each other. Of course, that's just my perspective. But also keep in mind that apparently this little movie gave Debby enough clout, at least on the network, to where Disney Channel ultimately decided to greenlight her own show which of course became the 101-episode (not 98!) long series Jessie. No, really, it got one of the highest adult demos of its night. It's really my theory that this message about childhood nostalgia, whether intended or not, proved to be a big hit with Millennials. I mean, think about it. We're supposedly the "never grow up" generation - we have high unemployment, low independent housing, yadda yadda. Abby's words about feeling like we're 16 and then suddenly 22 and needing a job and a means to afford our own place and take care of ourselves have become themes of a generation. And I'm not saying this as an insult to Millennials (being one myself of course) but that no doubt it happened to previous generations too - Gen X'ers, Baby Boomers, what have you as they suddenly find themselves transitioning from a school-focused work ethic to suddenly being in the actual work force. It's an increasingly universal theme as the world marches towards mechanization and now digitization, but it's a theme that's been rather under-represented in all but tween through young adult media. But enough of me waxing nostalgic and complaining about my personal life again, how does it rate as a movie? Well, Abby's a brat through the first part (then again that's the point) and then we kinda see her cartoon-mature and she grows up, yadda yadda. Debby's not bad at all in it, Jean-Luc captains his way through it equally respectably, Karissa is very much underappreciated, Chevron Guy makes for the second ultra-nerdy sci-fi reference in this very sentence and again if you've seen the movie you probably know who I'm talking about when I talk about this curly-hair ginger girl with these sapphire-forged eyes who's, like, so gorgeous I'd go through another round of chemo for, like I will forget about my lousy ex for her, yadda yadda. Even when trying to emotionally divorce oneself it's a pretty competent movie, and Lord knows there've been quite a few official DCOMs that don't measure up to this one (the vastly overrated Cowbelles, Teen Beach 2, yes Invisible Sister) Movie Grade: B-. Like I said, it's at least competent and enjoyable enough it deserves this. Movie MVP: That ridiculously gorgeous blue-eyed ginger, of course, for completely memorizing me in the two or three scenes she's in including the one scene where she gasps, which is the closest speaking role she has. ...just kidding, although I really do think she deserves more recognition (seriously, I don't think gingers get enough recognition for how beautiful they are, as I've again shared on this very blog before). But really, it's obviously going to be Debby, duh. This is the performance that convinced the network to give her Jessie, after all. Extra Thoughts: - Of course after mentioning that last part I guess I'm obligated to again remind you that my ex-fiancee herself is a ginger so I'm biased (and again, Debby became a fake ginger for the Jessie role so, there). - Speaking of Cowbelles, both that and 16 Wishes feature the song Don't Wanna Grow Up by the band Willknots - Uuugggh Disney Channel commercials from April leading up to the RDMAs are soooo laaaaaame. But I probably only think this because the RDMAs themselves are after-the-fact old news now. - here's a bit of trivia for you: after wishing to become popular, Abby claims that the dads of some girls are planning her birthday party in Las Vegas as they happen to own half of that town. This implies that they're direct descendants of Howard Hughes who quite literally owned half of Vegas (though it's honestly doubtful the writers really knew this at the time). - Abby's driver's license information is the following: ID #073 477 657; Class D (do note that most 16 year olds start off with a Class C license which legally permits them to drive most normal passenger cars - being too lazy to Google it, I don't even know if "Class D" is a thing); no endorsements (minor fun fact: yours truly, the author of this blog, has one endorsement: M, giving legal permission to operate motorcycles); no restrictions; Code 776-36A (whatever that means) and lists her DOB as 7/7/95 (which implies that the movie takes place very specifically on July 7, 2011 - almost exactly 11 months into the future of its original Disney Channel premiere date - and is also contradicted by the fact that in parts of the movie everyone's breath is obviously visible and many trees remain bare as they probably shot it in late February or early March of 2010) and her height as being 5'6" (which is Debby's actual height) and just as Celeste the Birthday Fairy says, the license doesn't expire - The design of the "Coastal State" license plate on Abby's car also implies this takes place in Oregon even though her license actually refers to "Coastal State" as the actual name of the state. - Abby's school, Walnut Grove, is a real school in the Vancouver area where the movie was shot. It's a private school and you can see on their website they're very proud of being the filming location for 16 Wishes. Their mascot actually is the Gators, BTW (as displayed on the school bus and Abby's lifetime lunch pass, which is modeled after the actual Walnut Grove lunch pass. Yes, I go deep into this for you - only on this blog!) - Yeah, I am waaaay behind on Andi Mack. I was hoping to binge on the backlog of episodes up to the latest today for my birthday but...yeah, forget that. We'll be resuming Andi Mack reviews tomorrow. Hopefully. - And obviously this is Part 2 of our Birthday Blog posts today, so, Happy Birthday Debby! (And Happy Birthday Me!)

[newstfionline]

Storms, earthquakes, North Korea and now the Las Vegas massacre. We have to wonder: ‘What’s next?’

Rick Hampson, USA TODAY, Oct. 3, 2017

When the month began, a confluence of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires and a brewing international nuclear confrontation already had some Americans thinking about End Times.

Then Las Vegas, the nation’s playground, witnessed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history--the latest in this peerless series of catastrophes. Some were natural, some man-made. Together, they’ve shadowed a usually optimistic nation with a cloud of sorrow and anxiety.

You didn’t have to be in Vegas, Seattle, Houston, Key West or San Juan, or have relatives in Mexico, or live in the Inter-mountain West with a respiratory condition, to be worried. A nation that had thought itself numbed to tragedy is realizing that no matter how bad things are, they apparently can always get worse.

“Why?” asked country music star Blake Shelton in a tweet after the shooting. That was one question, shared many times by many others. There was another: “What’s next?”

A summer that seemed destined to be remembered for its magnificent solar eclipse had lurched suddenly toward the eve of destruction. And autumn hasn’t been much better.

So much has gone wrong so fast it’s fair to review the overlapping calamities:

In the span of two weeks, two major hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, hit the continental U.S., the first time two category 4 storms have ever done so in a single season. Then a third storm, Maria, clobbered the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, producing a level of misery that still may not have crested.

Mexico was shaken by two earthquakes 12 days apart that killed hundreds of people. The second occurred on the anniversary of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that killed thousands. That quake had been commemorated, and a national earthquake drill held, just two hours before the ground again began to shake on Sept. 19.

Wildfires, spurred by some of the driest, hottest late summer weather on record, consumed an area in the West 50% larger than the state of New Jersey. As air quality plummeted across Washington State, the governor declared a state of emergency and told everyone in some areas to stay indoors.

The leaders of the U.S. and North Korea traded insults and threats. President Trump ridiculed his own secretary of state’s efforts to negotiate with the Kim Jong Un regime to peacefully resolve the nuclear faceoff. Trump tweeted that Rex Tillerson “is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man...”

The natural disasters produced images that unsettled even those nowhere near them. Consider just the wildfires.

In normally wet Seattle, which on Aug. 8 recorded its record 52nd straight day without rain, ash from Central Washington fires fell like snow and covered the city with a dense smoke cloud. In Montana, wildfires closed the western part of Glacier National Park’s famous Going-to-the-Sun Road …. while the eastern portion was closed by ice and snow.

In Las Vegas, a man rich enough to have two planes and an arsenal of guns opened fire Sunday night from the upper floor of a luxury hotel, hitting or injuring hundreds of concertgoers across the street. As of this writing, 59 had died.

The crises brought out the best in some people. Texas saw an American Dunkirk, with more than 15,000 rescued from high waters by a motley array of craft. And Mexicans spontaneously formed bucket brigades to remove rubble and search for survivors in the ruins of hundreds of collapsed schools and other buildings.

But for all too many, it was all too much.

Tamara Harpster, 54, of Lakeside, Calif., wrote on Facebook that when she learned of the shooting “I felt numb.” After the last month, “it seems like ‘Oh well, just another day in a sucky world now.’ … I feel such a loss of control and a realization that there is nothing an individual can do to stop these horrible things from happening.”

And yet, she wrote, “I want somehow to fix things and make them stop.”

Daniel Gardner, who teaches communications at Mississippi State, says that while most people in the rural South shake their heads over the troubles and move on, the millennials he teaches are different: With instantaneous communication via social media, they are “easily shaken emotionally, and prone to be more naive and gullible. … So the confluence of bad events makes them feel more vulnerable.”

A 15-year-old with the Twitter handle of Mickel made a similar point: “i don’t like the general direction of where the world is going.”

The question was why it seemed to be going there.

There was an obvious answer--coincidence--and on one level, it was all explicable.

Storms? That’s why they call this hurricane season. And until 2017 it had been 12 years since any hurricane of such intensity made continental U.S. landfall.

Quakes? Mexico sits on unstable tectonic plates.

Fires? Forests have been burning in North America since before any civilization.

Korea? The Korean War never officially ended when hostilities ceased in 1953. Sabers have been rattling ever since.

As for Las Vegas, America since Columbine has repeatedly demonstrated what happens when a wealthy, historically violent nation with many angry, mentally disturbed residents has loose gun laws.

Some blamed global warming for the storms and the fires; some blamed Trump for Korea and the halting Puerto Rico relief effort.

Others saw a higher authority in control.

‘What else is needed to get our attention?” asked Michael L. Brown, the conservative host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Line of Fire.

“We need to get on our faces before the Lord, acknowledging our own sins and shortcomings, not pointing the finger at others but rather at ourselves. And whatever our views on climate control and gun control and immigration reform and President Trump, we need to implore the only one who can heal our land.”

In a video he posted online, actor Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) called the hurricanes “a spectacular display of God’s immense power” and said, “weather is sent to cause us to respond to God in humility, awe and repentance.”

Was Judgement Day at hand? Several who studied the question had set the date at Sept. 23. But as the day passed and the tribulations continued, some didn’t need obscure scriptural passages or complicated astrological projections to feel the end was near.

That’s one theology. Another is held by the Rev. Ryan Moore of First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa. He told the Tulsa World that he doesn’t spend much time trying to predict when The End is coming, because a daily faith matters more.

“But with all that’s going on in the world,” he admits, “you can’t help but be a little bit apocalyptic.”

[pennswoodsman]

Every day is a drive through history

What a strange time in history this is turning out to be. First of all, the election of someone as unqualified as Donald J Trump in of itself is such a frightening phenomenon…his egotism, not even trying to hide the fact that he is a demagogue, and his supporters like those terrorists in Charlottesville, VA last weekend openly expressing racist views and even the committing murder of one of the counter protestors…this is a strange time. Nuclear war has become a threat yet again via North Korea, the only time our country has been more divided than it is now was the events leading up to the Civil War, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up here or abroad any time soon. As a former student of history, it’s even more terrifying. The parallels of what is happening now and what happened in Europe at the turn of the 20thcentury are too obvious to ignore. The extreme nationalism based mostly on race and national origin…The election of Trump based on both of those things…Brexit based on both of those things…I’m waiting for a borderline fascist government to be elected in France or Germany…breaking up the EU and really getting the European war machine rolling again.  Only instead of Jews being the scapegoat it will be Muslims. I’m waiting for someone to be assassinated.  It could be Trump himself…and his hardcore followers start a war. Or possibly a Muslim assassinates him, or gets blamed for assassinating him…thus triggering another world war.  This time centered in the middle east.  I fear for the nation of Israel.  They are forever surrounded by enemies on all sides and even the American left has turned their backs on them. Anger and bitterness, very much enflamed via social media and 24 hour news has made our country so divided. The right and the left are both divided within themselves too. The so called “alt-right” …the torch wielding racialists with an early 20th century mentality…compared to the moderates who still voted for Trump because the idea of voting for Hillary Clinton was unthinkable (thanks FOX) On the left, we have the Berniecrats (such as yours truly) who are the hard core defenders of social equality and pushers for change in the ways of Democratic Socialism. The right has mixed feelings for them.  One the one hand, they keep the left divided and allow for them to get right wing nut jobs like Trump elected…on the other hand, they are the epitome of the enemy. The right’s worst nightmare would be for them to be the united choice of the Democrats…they being mask wearing left wing extremists who aren’t intimidated by the right wing thugs. Will punch and shoot back when attacked. They, on the other hand, didn’t all vote for Hillary Clinton en masse. I did vote for her, and it’s a shame the others didn’t. Clinton wouldn’t be a bad president.  She was more than qualified. That’s where the other side of the left comes in…the moderate left… who totally backed Clinton in the primary.  They quickly hated us Berniecrats for dividing the vote… I argue that they don’t have a monopoly on the left wing, and it’s not like their point of view can be the only one.  The Clinton supporters acted like the Berniecrats had no business even being there and continued to put us down even after they won the primary via social media. It made me angry, as well as most of the other Berniecrats. It was personal. Suddenly the principles of Democratic Socialism were being ridiculed by the left too…and just for the sake of insulting it’s believers. The Berniecrats weren’t really that much nicer to the Clinton supporters either.  I heard of a lot of bullshit coming from them too. The divide both saddens and disappoints me. The biggest problem with the primary was that it was a battle of generations. The status quo lefties (The Clinton supporters…ei mostly the previous generations of left wingers) VS. the revolution lefties (Sanders Supporters, IE the millennial and more hard core left wing supporters of the previous generations…like my father and me…and most of my friends).

   I’m not sure if I’m relieved or burdened by the fact that I can think about politics again.  I was able to put it all out of my mind for about 2 months…the world/national issues took a back seat to my personal issues. Yea, I know I’m lucky that I was able to do that, being a white, straight male living in the US…where politics tend to not affect me to a point where they get in the way of my personal life. I fear for my children.  I think of Climate change, war, terrorism, nationalism, religious extremism, school shootings, etc and I know my personal problems are pretty small, and unlike those other things, are fixable in a much shorter period of time. When my boys get older I want to purchase a few firearms. Teach them how to shoot it and respect it. This is America. Everyone is armed and I don’t want to be the exception. I just want the arms to be protecting us rather than harming us. Guns are huge in our country. There needs to be major reforms as to who can purchase them and from whome.  I don’t have a problem with law abiding citizens with no mental health issues and a clean criminal record owning firearms responsibly.  People have the right to protect themselves from criminals who mean to do them harm…or from political extremists who are themselves armed to the teeth and mean to do them harm. Alba and I don’t see eye to eye on this one.  That’s ok. We agree on most other things and it’s not a major issue in our house.

I’m just happy we are reconnecting so well on every level. This is the kind of thing that is minor. I just hope I’m wrong about the direction our country/ world is going in. Here’s to a regime change in 2018 and 2020! #Berniecrat #clintonista #historyrepeatsitself #FrazFerdinand