I was having a frustrating day as a post for this very site I was working on was not coming together well. To cheer myself up I thought I might play a bit of High School Musical as it generally makes me a very happy bunny. I went to Youtube and on one of the videos I found this comment;
used to love these movies :O I was obsessed with every disney star...back in the day when JB stood for Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron was the #1 teen heartthrob, Miley was the girl who was going to be a billionaire by 18, and everyone wanted to be Vanessa Hudgens because she had the best boyfriend in the world :P
Remember the days when the biggest drama was miley and nick breaking up? oh the good old days :P
I'm pretty sure what this girl is describing is still the present. The last time I checked High School Musical was still massive and Miley Cyrus was still minted. How can this persons life have changed in such a way that she feels she can reminisce about things that happened only 3 years ago. I think the world is coping ok with JB standing for Justin Bieber, I'm sure on the whole the Jonas Brothers are fine with it. I remember the days when you just called everybody by there full name and didn't needlessly abbreviate everything, so it wasn't such a big deal if things had the same initials. This person actually refers to this as the good old days! If High School Musical is classed as the old days I think we can legitimately start showing Pokemon episodes in history classes, and write essays on yoyo's.
'Remember the days when the biggest drama was miley and nick breaking up?' What are the drama's that are happening now? I'm sure twitter would implode on itself with devastation if Selena and Justin broke up. 27 people have liked this comment meaning they must agree that times have changed, I just literally have no idea in what way. It makes me feel very old.
I am waiting at the bus stop having finished my shift from work. Now the bus is already 20 mins late and i've been on my feet all day so i'm not in the best of moods. The bus arrives and aswel as me getting on there is a huge group of old people. We all clamber to the side of the pavement to flag it down and as it approaches I realise with a sinking feeling that its rammed.
Being a seasoned public transport user I know the rules of bus travel and even though the bus has pulled up at my feet I skillully move myself to the back of the queue, as there is no way i'm getting on and sitting down only to immediately get up to give an older person my seat. However a lady in front has appointed herself leader of the bus users, and even though she is definitely in her seventies she ushers me and everybody else on presumably because she thinks we will all need assistance. I am somewhat bemused and affronted by this as she isn't even a regular bus user, if anybody is going to be in charge of getting people on the bus its me, the bus drivers know me.
As I am getting on the bus I am mildly panicking that I will have to stand and usher her past me to available seats but fortunately the seat right behind the driver is free so I squeeze myself in overjoyed that I have a seat. The joy however does not last long, everytime the bus stops I brace myself with the prospect of getting up to give my seat away, and never knowing the appropriate time to do this and what is the age of the person that you legitimately offer the seat to as I don't want to cause offence by assuming someone is old and it turns out they're only 40.
After about twenty minutes a new world of hell is unleashed when I realise there is no button to stop the bus anywhere near me. In order to stop the bus I will have to walk to the middle of the bus passing many people who I am sure would think I was crazy. Across from me is the disabled space and there is a button there, hurray you think. No. This button is green while the other stop buttons are red. I am confused as to whether it is a stop button or a button for emergencies or something. This now makes pressing any button practically impossible, if the green button is a stop button then if I walk to the middle of the bus people will think 'why has she come all this way to press this button there is one in the disabled space.' But if the green button is for emergencies then i've pressed it and everyone thinks 'what an idiot, that button is for emergencies.' And who knows what that button does, what if I accidentally send for an ambulance.
So there is nothing to be done i'm going to have to go old school and just ask the driver to stop when its my stop. Another nightmare as i'm not a big talker on the bus especially once i've bought my ticket. When is the appropriate time to ask the driver? and how close do I need to be to him should I stand? My stop is next so I am out of time, I stand up and lean over, the words are just about to leave my mouth when I hear a ding and the light flashes 'stopping'. Someone else is also getting off at my stop and has pressed the button, crisis averted.
The sooner I pass my driving test the better, I cant live like this much longer.
Having recently seen the film What's your Number? I was reintroduced to the actor Chris Evans, he comes across very lovable in the film and being the pathetic girl I am I instantly started picturing what our relationship would be like, (it would definitely be awesome). However he is not the only famous Chris Evans out there, and I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket and deny myself the chance with Chris Evans the television presenter and radio dj.
So I did the sensible thing and made some lists,
Chris Evans the actor:
Pros
Has good comedic timing so he's probably funny.
Seems like a nice person.
Very attractive.
Not afraid of hard work (a body like that does not fall out of the sky).
Seems friendly.
Would laugh at my jokes, even if only to be polite.
He was in the Fantastic four: Rise of the silver surfer
He probably has a really nice house.
Cons
Lives very far away from me.
In America I would get heat rash as its too hot.
People would think I was only in it for the money.
I would have to look good all the time.
He would always be surrounded by beautiful women.
I would look ugly in comparison to him.
He is waaaay out of my league.
Chris Evans the presenter:
Pros
He lives locally.
Considered to be funny.
We have similar interests.
I would get to look around the One show studio.
He knows how to cook.
I might be considered the better looking person in the couple.
Much higher chance of me meeting Billie Piper.
Cons
I would definitely be considered a gold digger.
He is older than me.
He's already married.
I can find him very annoying.
He works on a Sunday morning so we couldn't go out Saturday night.
Would probably end up in prison for cutting him with a machete.
Well if you treat it as a numbers game Chris Evans actor has more cons, who would have seen that coming.
I only have a part time job, so while having a ridiculously large amount of free time and desperately trying to better myself I have started to watch Prime Minister Questions. It is by far and away one of the most bizzare pieces of television I have ever watched. Take a look at this clip,
These people are supposed to be well educated, eloquent and have the countries best interests at heart and yet somebody trips up on their words and it brings the place down. I dread to think what would happen if somebody farted, absolute chaos probably. These are the people employed to represent us and our communities and yet they behave like school children, if I were the speaker i would make them write lines in silence about how it is rude to talk over people while they are speaking. On my first day of upper school when taking my GCSE's, a girl tripped head first down some stairs infront of our entire year and nobody laughed as hard as that and we were only 14!
This isn't a one off thing either, every time anybody speaks its met with cheers or boo's like its a pantomime. The saddest part of it all for me is that this really shows that none of these people have a sense of humour if that is the type of thing that gets them falling of their chair and throwing their hands in the air. I've seen funnier things on My Family and that show is awful.
A career in politics is not for me, I'm just too fucking funny.
Talent shows have a fairly poor reputation. This isn't an unjust opinion, talent shows have pretty much dominated British television schedules for a long time. My Saturday nights since I had a double digit birthdays have pretty much been dominated by watching the next superstar singing or dancing for survival. I'm a young woman and its safe to say this has probably been quite detrimental to my social life, I'm pretty sure I became known as 'Katie the girl who loves television Jones'.
Talent shows are by no means perfect, The X Factor has destroyed the christmas number one, and Britains Got Talent lose all credibility when someone like DJ Talent can make it through to the semi finals, but what I love about them is their ability to make the most bizzare thing popular again. Thanks to Michael Collins from Britains got Talent I got the joy of hearing Tracy Chapman's Fast Car being blasted out of a car, with four lads thinking they are the shit with their sub woofers and cigarettes. I hope that didn't sound sarcastic because it wasn't, that song is amazing, and I have loved it since the first time it was played to me by my Dad, and thanks to BGT it was heard by a whole different audience. Turn My Swag On, by Soulja Boy would have never charted if it hadn't been for Cher Lloyd on the X Factor, (can't say I'm quite as happy about that one) and just this week Damien Rice's Cannonball will go top ten because of John Adams. They can rewrite the rules of the chart, and clearly the contestants know good music. I just hope somebody does an amazing version of Band of Gold by Freda Payne because I would love to see that back in the charts.That or Day and Night by Billie Piper.
I challenge you not to enjoy this, it just warms the heart.
Its a well known fact that for actors in soap operas being able to act is not their only skill. Many of the stage school alumni's have a multitude of performance skills in the bank, and it's only natural that after there time on the telly box has come to an end they might want to try a new direction.
Now with their beautiful faces and large fan base already you would think that making the transition into pop music would be a breeze for our Australian lovelies, however it is not. Of course some people manage it, Kylie being a classic example, Holly Vallance for a time, Delta Goodrem is dating a Jonas Brother now so she's landed on her feet, but for as many successes there are twice as many failures so I am going to take this time to remember the music that never made it across the world from our Australian stars.
Introducing Bec Cartwright, Bec played Hayley in Home and Away and was one half of my favourite ever Home and Away couple Hayley and Noah (RIP Noah, I loved you as much as Hayley did!) This is her single All Seats Taken, i'm not really sure what that means, if its a cinema? or a bus? Or anything with seats? She later goes on to sing that she's 'all booked up for you' so I can only assume its a hotel or restaurant. This reached number 10 in the Australian chart but her album came in at a dissapointing 21 so it was never released in the UK. Bec no longer acts or sings, but she is married to Leyton Hewitt the Australian tennis star so don't feel too bad for her.
This is Tammin Sursok, this song is Its a Beautiful Thing I wanted to play Pointless Relationship which is my personal fave but the embedding was disabled, annoying! You get the idea of the type of music she made with Its a Beautiful Thing though. Tammin played Dani Sutherland on Home and Away and a story she was in involved Dani not being able to sing but learning and being able to sing in front of everybody at school, it was all very moving. This should have been a clue that she would want to sing once she left. Her singing career did not takeoff with this song charting at number 30. It's not all doom and gloom for Tammin though, she now lives in LA and is acting again playing the character of Jenna Marshall on the television show Pretty Little Liars, and that shows bloody amazing!
Saving the best till last its Stephanie McIntosh!! Stephanie played the character of Sky Mangel in Neighbours. She unbelievably signed a 5 album deal with her record company, and a reality show that was about making her first album was called The Steph Show coincided with her first single release, Mistake. The video is hilarious! She sings to a mirror! Alas her album did not chart as well as hoped and after some questionable live performances she was dropped. This song was released in the UK so you might have heard it, but then again probably not.
Australian soap stars turned pop stars, gone but not forgotten! (Well not by me at least.)
I have been playing on the facebook application MyZoo on and off for about 3 years now, and I am doing pretty well if I do say so myself. It started at uni and became a small craze in my friendship circle, but like most things the hype died down and people got bored and stopped playing. Not me.
I continued with MyZoo relentlessly and even now I dont understand how people could have become tired of it. If MyZoo were real I would be the richest person in the world by a good 100 trillion dollars. My zoo is almost 700 years old and I get as many visitors a day as a small festival. I am incredibly enviromentally conscious as I release almost two thirds of my animals back in to the wild as well as rescuing animals in need.
I became quite content alone in the MyZoo world, however something has occurred that has caused me to question where my loyalties lie. My good friend Toby has started to play MyZoo again. At first I was thrilled, Toby was the person who originally introduced me to MyZoo and I was delighted that he was back in the game. That was until Toby started making progress. Toby's zoo is less that 20 years old and he is already on level 58 (I am on level 165) he is getting through ten challenge levels in less than a week and if his progress continues like this then my lead, that I though was unassailable could slip from my grasp.
I am now having to ask myself what means more to me, MyZoo or my friend? What type of person does that make me, of course I care about my friend more, but the fact I could think that is cause for concern, does my life really revolve around animals that don't even exist? So much so that I would risk long friendships? I think I need to take some time and really think about this, possibly go to a MyZoo retreat or something.
I would like to give Toby a special little message if he should happen to read this, this is my current favourite quote for this situation,
'I don't meet competition. I crush it' Charles Revson.
Does anybody remember the children's cartoon Arthur? Our central character Arthur is an aardvark, the show follows him and his friends going through life and school getting up to all the crazy shenanigans that children do. Some classic episodes are when they sing the Library song and Arthur falling off his bike and cutting his leg.
Now Arthur is joined on his many adventures by his friends, there is Buster his best friend (a rabbit), then we have brain who is funnily enough the smart one (I believe he is a mouse, though he could equally be an aardvark) Francine, who is a tomboy and my least favorite character, I wouldn't be friends with her if I was Arthur she is so rude to them! (She is a monkey), and many other animal friends for Arthur.
I am all for humanising animals and giving them their own civilisation to live in but I believe there is a massive plot hole in using this device. Arthur has a pet dog.
How can this be possible? How can Arthur an animal, have another animal as a pet? Especially considering that in the show Binky, the class Bully is also a dog! Who decides which dogs are allowed to grow up as humans and which dogs must be reduced to household pets? Also Arthur has a baby sister, so an infant aardvark is being raised as a human and yet a puppy must be raised as an animal in the same house!
What a messed up world Elwood city is. But hey Arthur did teach me that having fun isn't hard when you have a library card
Today I watched Grease. Lately i have become pretty rapped up in how musicals are most definitely back, High School Musical and Glee have diverted my attention from almost everything in my life, and I genuinely think that regardless of what you think of them as stand alone pieces of of film and television the impact of them in making musicals mainstream again is undeniable.
Musical's ability to tap into the very core of what makes me happy is insane, for example i went with my best friend to see the Glee 3D Concert film that has just been released. Now it may have been critically panned and bombed at the box office but for a Glee fan i don't think you can go wrong, i was so excited after having seen it that i struggled to get to sleep.
While I love Glee and High School Musical, having watched Grease for the first time in a long while, I believe it is the ultimate high school themed musical. Zac Efron is basically just Jon Travolta except Jon's better because he has a bum chin! (Don't get me wrong I love Zac, I have a picture of him topless on my wall and I am genuinely considering having it made into wallpaper and creating a feature wall.) I just believe that Jon Travolta wrote the rules about how to be a singing teen and everybody else merely follows them and hopes to match his greatness.
If at the end of my life i am still able to appreciate the pure joy in this song then I know I will have lived well.
