The Sex Ed Debate

This is what's in the news this week. I'm glad to see there are quotes from students and even parents basically saying "WTF?!" Teaching a kid how to use a contraceptives is contributing to the delinquency of a minor? Really? Get real.

Here's the thing. I don't understand why sex ed is such a huge issue. Sex is a part of life. Everybody's gonna do it at some point. (Well, most people. Many people.) Teenagers are more mature than you think - they deserve to know the real deal. Should they be having sex? Noooo... Will they probably anyway and should they have all the facts? ABSOLUTELY.

At my high school - guess what: health class was REQUIRED. And my mom didn't have to sign any stupid note that it was okay for me to learn how human biology works. We learned all about sex. The good and the bad. Did they take the time to emphasize how you probably shouldn't have sex? Yup. And guess what? I don't remember any pregnant teens walking around my school. Not that it never happened - no school is immune. But not while I was there. Not that I saw.

There are more important things worth fighting about. Let the teens learn about sex properly. The more you hide from them, the more you try and convince them not to do it...the more curious they get. Human nature. Give them the facts. They'll be adults soon enough. It's okay to treat them like one once in awhile. Give them some credit. And move on to something that's more important to argue about. Really. Showing someone how to use a condom really isn't worth fighting over.

The Wovie Channel

OMG.

The Weather Channel's gonna have movies.

Yeah. For real.

This is just so sad to me. I understand people can't watch weather all day...well, most people anyway, but seriously - movies?! That just seems wrong to me. And some of their choices - Deep Blue Sea?! That movie is hilarious - mostly unintentionally - is that really the kind of movie a respectable channel such as the Weather Channel wants to associate with? I mean, for the love of god, the ending theme is LL Cool J singing about how his hat is like a shark's fin. (I am NOT kidding!)

Though, when you resort to movies...is there any respect left to give? 


You'll have to look for your local forecast while Samuel L. Jackson yells about shit.

Killing Your Childhood, One Doll At A Time

So, last year I was horrorfied to find out my favorite American Girl doll, Samantha was being "put in the American Girl archives".

AKA she was being discontinued.

I was very saddened by this - I've had my Samantha doll since I was like 8 and I've always kept great care of her, even though I played with her frequently as a child. When I found out all her stuff was being discontinued I ordered all the outfits and accessories that I didn't own before they went away for good. 


So when I got a letter from American Girl today, saying there was big news about Kirsten, the only other doll I own, I knew it wasn't gonna be anything good.


Sure enough, she's being shipped off to the archives "soon" as well. And if I bought all the clothes and only SOME of the accessories I don't own for her, with the outrageous shipping charges ($16?! Are you kidding me?!) it comes to over $150 bucks.


WTF, Mattel? (Mattel owns the company now.) Is this how it's gonna be? You gonna kill off Molly next? Or Felicity? I guess you want to put out all new dolls. I guess I can see why - it's expensive to how so many different ones, but it's still a disappointment. Now I can't buy for my daughter in the future (assuming I have one, but let's not get into that) a doll like the one I had as a kid. 


In my opinion, the dolls have gone downhill. You used to be able to buy all kinds of cute accessories with the historical dolls - right down to their school lunch. (I have Samantha's.) Not anymore. Most of the focus seems to be on the girl of today. I remember when that doll was introduced, and that's all well and good - I know I sure as hell wanted one as a kid - but I think you're concentrating too much on $$$$ and not enough on what the original purpose of the dolls were. I loved history as a kid. It interested me. So having dolls that taught me about history was very appealing. And I think you're doing the real girls of today a disservice by churning one more ice skating outfit for the girl of today, while shoving another classic historical doll out the door. 

Learning through the dolls is fun. It's different. I can get a modern doll with modern clothes anywhere. The historical dolls are what made the American Girls different. It's why I was so excited to get the catalog in the mail. Please, I beg you, don't forget that. 


Kirsten, we'll miss you and your frontier spirit.

Friday, 9/4/09 ~ News and Junk

Definitely more this week than last week.

TV

>> It's a boy for Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs! Congrats to them.

>> Looks like Danny Gokey is getting an album...wonder how many people will actually shell out money for it.

>> TV Guide Lists the most anticipated shows of the Fall. Glee was on this week, and I missed it, of course. 

>> Looks like SNL will be getting 2 more female cast members.

>>And more promos for The Office:

MOVIES


>> In case you care, The Final Destination was #1 last week. In taking a longer look at the title, I can't help but notice it does say THE FINAL Destination. So it really gonna be THE FINAL one? After being #1 at the box office, (Halloween II was third), I doubt it.


>>John Krasinski directs and stars in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Check out the article and trailer - it looks awesome. Plus Will Arnett is in it. I'm there. It comes out on the 25th of this month.

>>Aaaaaaand it looks like Warner Bros. is set to win the summer. Harry Potter, Terminator, and The Hangover are the movies they have to thank for it. 


>>Oh, and Disney's gonna buy Marvel. Who the hell saw that coming?


>>In Theaters Today:

• All About Steve (I have a friend named Steve. It's not about him.)
• Extract (This'll be on my Netflix queue in a few months. I love Jason Bateman.)
• Gamer (Young men will flock to this one.)

 

VIDEO GAMES

 

>> That "Hot Coffee" crap is still going on?! They shouldn't have to pay a dime, in my opinion. Ridiculous.

>> Wii games are getting better according to critics. That's good to know - though looking at the shelf of the local game store is still depressing for people not looking to dress up pets or play games with some creepy, soulless looking character.

>>A bunch of games that I could care less about but I know tons of other people will be excited for are slated to be out by next July. Some wives and girlfriends might wanna start bracing themselves now.

>>Nintendo is going to release a cooler version of Wii Fit, now that everybody already owns it.

Friday, 8/28/09 - News and Junk

Kind of a boring week for entertainment news if you ask me.

TV

>> Whoo hoo! Preview of the season premiere of The Office. Looks promising, but at the same time I am also nervous that this could easily be turned into something ridiculous. I'm just hoping season 6 is better than season 5.

>> Looks like Kristin Chenoweth will appear as a guest host on American Idol. She's one of the many celebs who'll be filling Paula's vacant seat during the initial auditions. Another celeb pegged to fill Paula's void? How I Met Your Mother's own Neil Patrick Harris. Guess I will be watching this season. At least the audition rounds.




MOVIES


>> Seems somebody didn't want to be interned above Marilyn Monroe after all, and the crypt is back on the market. That lady must really need cash if she's going through all the trouble of moving her husband's corpse.


>> The big movie that's getting attention all over the web this week is Inception, starring one of my favorites - Leonardo DiCaprio. Check out the trailer and see what you think. It's not coming out till July 2010.

• Looks weird, right? I thought so. Here's a bit of the plot for you. Sounds kind of interesting, but not something I'd rush out into theaters to see. Sorry, Leo.
• Oh, and apparently Leo is fat. He looks fine to me. But I guess I'm just glad it's an actor instead of an actress for once.

>> In theaters today:

• The Final Destination (Yeah, they're still riding that train, I guess.)
• Halloween II (Because just one sequel wasn't enough.)
• Taking Woodstock
• Big Fan
• The September Issue 

So, in the battle of the "They're still making those?" horror movies, which will come up on top? Personally, I hate horror movies. But that's another blog.



VIDEO GAMES

 
>> Big news is the Xbox price drop. But more importantly, they claim the whole red ring of death debacle is behind them. I guess only time will tell on that one, but I'm not holding my breath. Of everyone I know who has an Xbox 360 - I know only one person who hasn't seen that famous ring yet.


>> And finally, Beatles fans, the Beatles Rock Band is coming September 9th. And if you don't already own another Rock Band game, you can pick up the bundle from Amazon or Best Buy for $140 bucks. Not a bad deal.



That'll do it for this week.

News and Stuff ~ Week of October 26th

Yeah, so I skipped a week. And yeah, I'm kinda late. But most video game news doesn't really interest me. Why? Because most games nowadays are stupid. Why back in my day...haha, just kidding. But seriously most games are stupid FPS or other stupid interchangeable shooting type games. But I digress.

• First and foremost I need to complain. About what this time? About the character battle currently going on at the Gamefaqs website. They do this same nonsense every year, and every year either Link, Sephiroth or Cloud ends up the winner, depending on which characters they decide to let in it this year. Well, this year they're all in it. So la de freakin' da, I could have proclaimed Link the winner before this whole thing even began. It's really getting boring now. Once a character wins they should be retired for a long time. Like 5 years or something. At least. But surprisingly, that's not my real complaint. My real complaint is L Block. L Block, you may be wondering (and justifiably so), who the hell is L Block? Well, my friends, L Block is not a who, but a what. L Block is not a person. L Block doesn't talk. In fact, L Block never even appeared in a game where there were talking characters of any kind. L BLOCK IS A FUCKING PIECE FROM THE GAME TETRIS! Yeah! And as my sister pointed out, it's not even the best piece. (That would be the straight line, of course. They never give you one of those when you need it.) So while Gamefaqs may be up on it's high horse about having strict guidelines for it's content, they certainly don't abide by their own guidelines for their own contest. Because last time I checked, L Block is just that. A fucking block. And it's not a magical enchanged block that was once a sorcerer or something. It's just a block, like one of those bricks Mario smashes with his head. And last time I checked, blocks don't count as characters. So why is it in the contest? And worse, WHY ARE PEOPLE VOTING FOR THE BLOCK? Haha, let's vote for the inanimate object! WTF? If it's a character battle, keep it that way by only allowing CHARACTERS to be included. None of this block bullshit. Because if that's the case I'd like to see the ? blocks from the Mario games included. At least there's a little surprise with that box. Never know what might come out!

• Okay, that was long. Anyway, speaking of long, looks like the new Metal Gear Game has been pushed back to Q2 of 2008! Yikes! That news even caused Konami's stock to take its largest drop in 4 years! Guess everyone really wanted to get their hands on Solid Snake as soon as possible. ...That sounded wrong.

• The rumor is that Gamestop will no longer be selling PRPs (that's product replacement plans) on the Xbox 360 systems! Why? Um, maybe because way too many people are seeing the Red Ring of Death on their systems and a lot of people are losing a lot of money because of it. So far Microsoft has spent over a BILLION dollars repairing the dysfunctional systems. Maybe they should have spent more time on the system instead of rushing it out the door.

• And finally The Simpons Game is out in stores. Gamespot gave it s 7.0 in their review. I played the demo and while I thought the game was very clever and visually fantastic, the demo was hard! Mostly because the controls weren't the greatest. In fact I wound up giving up on it. So while I'd like to play the game, I think it's definitely something I'd rent just to enjoy the humor of the game. Definitely not worth buying.

News And Stuff ~ Week of Oct. 15th

• First a bit of comedy. I went back to the grind of Animal Crossing: Wild World. In discussing the game with my sister, this conversation ensued:

Her: remember i told dad one of the animals was creepily
hanging outside my door with a shovel, and he thought i was
in legitimate danger?

Me: LMAO, that is the funniest thing ever. Omg! Your
Animal Crossing character is going to be murdered! What are Booker and that
other cop guy gonna do! This has never happened before! Next thing you know, Tom Nook will be robbed at gunpoint!

• And Sony is stupid. They announce a cheaper PS3 with a smaller hard drive. Nothing wrong with that. Here's the problem. It won't be able to play PS2 games. Yeah. Why? Because, and I quote, "Sony said this was due to a more extensive lineup of games of the PlayStation 3." Wow...have they seen their own game line-up? Now I am a fan of Sony, and I have many, many games I greatly enjoyed for PS2 and PS3. But so far for PS3? Not a thing. You've got a whole huge catalog of great PS2 games that you're just going to ignore now? I'm paying $400 for a system that has pretty much no backwards compatibility. Why do you want to fail more, Sony? Just wondering. Because I really don't think this is a good move.

• Looks like Mario Party is coming to the DS. The game, where four people can play using only one cartridge, ships next month. Now I can beat everybody on the go!

And that's all the news I care about.