Monday, March 8, 2010

Life As Liz, Episode 6 Recap (ABCs Of Friendship)

Episode title:
The ABCs of Friendship

I used to be like Garfield. I hated Monday's as a kid, and the hatred for Monday's stood with me from childhood to adulthood. Monday's have been, and likely always will be the dreaded reminder that you have another 4 days ahead of you till Friday.

Monday nights however have gotten a little sweeter thanks to the hit MTV reality show, Life As Liz.

This show has taken America by storm, fans cannot get enough of it, and the half hour show is one that I wish was an hour long.

We stand at episode 6 right now, titled, The ABCs of Friendship.

In this episode we learn that it is Liz's birthday, however the entire birthday celebration sort of gets put on the back burner due to the fact that the ABC party for high school kids is in order. If you're wondering ABC stands for 'Anything But Clothes'.

Liz gets an invite and initially was not going to go to the party. Once her lovable dorky friend Sully finds out she got an invite he tries to get her to take him along with her to the party. Liz shoots him down though and tells him she is not going.

We now fast forward a little bit where Sully is in his kitchen with his nerd herd making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tower. He and his friends are trying to come up with a costume idea for Sully to wear. The plan is for Sully to head over to Liz's and beg her to go to the ABC party with him.

Initially you believe that Sully wants to go because he thinks he is going to see naked girls. However the reality is that Sully has a little bit of a crush on Liz.

Outside of his home, Liz parks her car and calls Sully to attempt to hang out. He shoots her down in an awkward way, and Liz drives off confused. Sully shot her down though, because he needed to come up with a plan as to what he is going to wear, and how he is going to get Liz to go to the party.

While continuing his peanut better and jelly tower he has an epiphany. As a viewer it's obvious as to what he was going to wear, and if you are a fan of Family Guy you'd know what Sully had in store before he even attempts it.

Next we fast forward to Liz making a phone call. It's obvious she is trying to call Bryson. While making the call though Bryson does not realize that Liz is right in the parking lot watching him. She gets to witness him check his phone, and hit ignore.

Defeated in her attempts to hang out with friends Liz heads home. Shortly afterward a knock at the door, and Liz is greeted by Sully in a giant banana costume singing the Family Guy, peanut butter and jelly song.

He begs her to go to the party with him. Just when you think she is about to say no, she asks Sully what she would wear, and Sully is one step ahead of her. He hands her a small package type object. I could not tell what the heck it was, but that was part of the surprise.

Now we fast forward to the actual ABC party. Liz is grapes! She has on a purple spandex jumpsuit, with a bunch of purple balloons attached to the jumpsuit.

As quickly as Liz arrives to the party she is confronted by Corey. While the confrontation goes on, Taylor breaks it up and tells Corey to leave Liz alone. Corey looking like the ugly over tanned drag queen she is, tells Taylor to choose between her or Liz. I was shocked by this, because it reminded me of the childish antics that went on when I was in...oh...the 1st grade.

Taylor tells Corey she will miss her, and Corey walks away all flustered and angry. Haha! Taylor then tells Liz to come and dance with her.

The party goes on, and the night comes to an end. While at the front door, Sully is attempting to tell Liz how he feels about her, but instead freezes up and gets all awkward. They say goodnight, and Liz goes inside. Here her mother tells her that someone is out back waiting for her.

Surprise, surprise. It's Bryson putting golf balls in her back yard. He awkwardly tells her that he thinks it is over. Liz thinks he means their friendship, but clearly he meant his relationship with his girlfriend. It was basically a wimpy way to tell Liz that he dumped his chick for her. He should have just come flat out and told her how he felt, but like a high school boy, he kept his feelings to himself. Gez!

While the awkwardness is at a sky high level, Sully walks through the back door, and sees that Bryson and Liz are together. He obviously was going to tell Liz he liked her, but instead covered his tracks by pretending he forgot his bag.

It was cute really. He made a fun grand entrance, and a graceful exit. It was too funny.

Anyhow, we are left off with Liz and Bryson hitting golf balls out of her back yard. Next weeks sneak peek shows us that Liz is going to attempt to ask Bryson to the prom!

How to Wean Yourself Off of Social Networking Sites Such as Facebook

About a year ago I wandered on over to Facebook.com, I was referred to the site by a friend who told me that it was cooler than Myspace. Being a Myspace fan myself I wanted to check into it.

At first the site was confusing and offered me nothing. I didn't understand the profile page, and hated the lack of customizations that I could get from Myspace. However in 2 months time I noticed that people I knew from long, long ago were requesting my friendship. I even had a girl who used to hate me add me as a friend. I had people who were more popular than me suddenly wanting me to be in their inner circle, and I realize now, that the addiction took hold of me due to the fact that I finally felt like I fit in.

I realized I had a problem with Facebook when I found myself sitting in front of my PC just staring blankly at the screen waiting for someone, anyone to either update their status, add a picture, or comment on my status updates, or pictures.

I laughed when others posted too much information or posted pictures of their ugly children on a constant. Mostly though I felt this weird sense of pride, as if I were better than everyone else. Sort of a 'look what happened to the prom queen', she's so fat now! I felt better about myself. Facebook made me feel better about myself. I for once, felt better than the prom queen, and now the prom queen wanted to be my BFF.

I realized though, that this world in Facebook stood there, and only there. As many people as I made connections with, or caught up with 10 years later, the connection never stepped beyond the virtual world.

After realizing my addiction was deep and likely unhealthy I had to be real with myself. Would I really hang out with the prom queen? No. Would I really hang out with the girl I was friends with in 4th grade? No to that too.

Then I asked myself, does any of this really matter? I'm a grown adult, with a life, a real relationship, and all in all I'm happy. Yet here in the virtual land of Facebook, I longed for this popularity and this feeling of fitting in with people I once never fit in with. I began sharing too much information, and over thinking my next status update. This ritual was nothing more than me wasting valuable time staring at a screen.

That is my first tip as far as this addiction goes. As yourself these questions, and if you can answer them honestly you've succeeded in realizing you have a problem. If you are reading this article, than you've already come to the realization that you have a problem.

So how do we fix the problem?

It is hard, like any addiction. I know a lot of folks would say that Facebook is not an addiction or a drug, however I compare it to just that. Facebook and similar social networking sites keep people coming back for more. Like a typical addict you cannot go a day without it. Facebook was just that for me. My addiction, my drug, my virtual reality and I knew I had to get away.

Weaning myself off of Facebook came in steps.

I knew like cigarettes, I could not go cold turkey, so instead I set up rules for myself; strict rules that I had to follow.

I only allowed myself to sign on once a day during the work week in the morning. I set a 1 hour time limit per day. Weekends were Facebook free.

Following this rule was not as difficult as I thought it would be, but I did find myself longing to log in at night when I got home and had nothing to do, or if I was bored.

-The next thing I did once I got accustom to my 1 hour per day time limit was to stop playing Facebook games that had a strong hold on me. I was signing in to Facebook a lot in order to play Cafe World, Farmville, Mafia Wars, PetVille, and FishVille.

I told myself, who cares if my virtual farm dies, or my fishville fish go belly up. Does it really matter? No!

Removing Facebook games from my life helped a lot, because now instead of needing to spend an hour on Facebook, I could cut my time down to a half hour a day.

Once the games were gone, and my time limit now set to a lower limit, I realized that Facebook was a real time killer, and was ashamed that I had spent so many hours on it in the past.

Soon the prom queens updates and pictures of her ugly kid were no longer relevant. The girl who I was friends with in 4th grade is pregnant... so? How irrelevant is this to my life? Nothing that went on, on Facebook was really relevant to my life.

When I realized that I decided to do a clean up of my friend list. The less information for me to divulge in, the less time I'd spend on the site.

I decided to delete everyone who I had not seen in over 3 years. If someone is vacant from your life for over 3 years, there is a good reason as to why. So being friends with them on a social networking site is just wasteful. I went through my list of 228, and removed everyone who was irrelevant to me.

In the end I came out with only 19 people who were relevant to my life. They included my family, close friends, and family friends. Everyone else just doesn't matter. When you are able to realize that, you will see that Facebook itself is pretty irrelevant and unnecessary to your life.

Soon I found I only needed to log on perhaps once or twice a week to talk with cousins, friends, and siblings.

Facebook no longer was an addiction, because I already knew what was going on in their lives, as I see them and spend time with them in the real world.

Do I miss my virtual Facebook world? Do I miss updates and ugly baby pictures from the prom queen? Not at all. In fact, I feel free from my virtual responsibilities. It's quite refreshing, you should try it.

10 Best Alien Movies

Aliens have been popular ever since ancient times, we have historical paintings with what only appears to be UFOs in them, ancient toys that resemble UFOs and thousands and thousand's of people claiming to have seen UFOs, and in some more severe cases, people who claim to have been abducted.

With as much hype surrounding aliens, it only makes sense to have a never ending library of movies that feature aliens, abductions, and UFOs. Some movies display a more wicked nature of aliens, while others take on a cute, and sometimes comical look at aliens.

Here in no particular order I have compiled a list of the top 10 alien movies.

E.T

Who doesn't love E.T?

Instead of being scary evil beings from outer space, E.T shows a different side of aliens. They are cute, and capable of showing love. The hit children's movie from the 1980's has been, and likely always will be one of the top 10 alien movies.

The plot is a simple plot, yet a beautiful one all the same. When an alien is accidentally left behind on earth, a young boy named Elliot finds him. Elliot and his family struggle to help E.T get back home before he is taken away or dies. E.T by far is one of the most heart warming alien movies made to date.

Mac and Me


Mac and Me is not quite as well known as E.T, but this children's movie is similar to E.T due to the fact that aliens are represented as loving beings, who mean to bring no harm to humans.

The plot is similar to E.T as well, but the aliens take on a much more gangly and cuddly creature like appearance. In this movie a young handicap boy struggles to help Mac and his family get back into space after they manage to escape NASA agents. It's not easy, especially considering the fact that the agents are on their tails every step of the way.

Mac and Me has been given horrendous ratings, but if you watch the movie with children (or if you watched it while you were a child), I think many of you can agree with me when I say that Mac and Me is a very adorable and warm alien movie. Naturally it is meant for children.

Aliens

Naturally Aliens must be included. Far from Mac and Me, Aliens is what all humans fear . These aliens are not cute and cuddly, nor do they need to phone home, these aliens are wicked, they are out for blood, and they are terrifying. Aliens originally featured in 1986, and is still considered one of the most scary alien movies ever made.

Earth Girls Are Easy

Earth Girls Are Easy is without a doubt one of the funniest alien movies made. This old 80's relic features Jim Carrey before he was popular.

Earth Girls Are Easy is a fun flick that shows us that aliens can fall in love with humans. When 3 fur covered aliens land their spaceship in a young woman's swimming pool, they learn that they need to take on a human form n order to fit in with society. The young woman who finds them helps them to act and be more human in order to save them from being exposed before they are able to fix their ship.

Mars Attacks

Mars Attacks hit theaters in 1996, and is by far one of the most vile, yet hilariously fun alien movies made to date. In this hit alien movie, aliens rain down from space with full force attempts on taking over the world. At first they come in peace, but quickly they make their mark by blasting humans with their space guns. Pretty soon it's all out war, humans vs alien style!

The War of the Worlds

Originally War of the Worlds took notice due to a radio show that broadcast on Halloween in 1938. In the show the host let out a fake broadcast about aliens that led actual listener's to believe that the world was being taken over by aliens, which led to tons of controversy, and angry listeners. Before then though, War of the Worlds was a book created by H.G. Wells.

War of the Worlds is great movie in which aliens come to take over the world. Tom Cruise plays the lead in this one, and does a rather good job. It makes it to this list only because it is based off of the work of H.G. Wells.

Predator

Predator was made in 1987, and this alien movie is by far one of my favorites due to the fact that it sprung up real hardcore fear, as I had nightmares about traveling through swamp lands where a big creepy alien would sniff me out, and use its radar eyes to find me, then of course kill me with its ferocious hunting skills. Right now there is a remake being done with a 2010 release.

The Fourth Kind

This alien movie is one of the hottest movies dealing with aliens and alien abductions right now. The hype and popularity of this movie is primarily due to the fact that it is based off of actual interviews with people who claim to have been abducted by aliens in Nome, Alaska.

The movie is said to be true, and the main characters and their interviews are all supposedly real. This movie is said to be very upsetting and or terrifying to many viewers who have seen it.

Close Encounters of a Third Kind

Close Encounters of a Third Kind hit the box office in 1977, and focuses on scientists communicating with aliens through really neat sounds and colors. The movie has a very memorable sound effect that the aliens used to communicate with humans. You can still find many people today humming the incredibly addicting tune.

My Stepmother Is An Alien

This 1988 flick features a really cute plot where an alien is sent to earth on a secret mission. While on earth she meets a human man whom she eventually falls in love with (Dan Aykroyd). The mans daughter however is on to her, and eventually the alien stepmother is exposed.

Although My Stepmother Is An Alien is not one of the greatest alien movies out there, it definitely deserves a slot here on the list, as it still manages to be a children's favorite.