90s/Early Millenium Flashback

The mid-nineties to the early 00s were a magical time to be an adolescent. When I think of this period, I think of bright colors, Nokia phones, itty-bitty tops paired with baggier bottoms, and these. On a more personal level, this time period also conjures up images of riding "the strip" on Saturday nights with friends, hanging out at the TCBY after school on Fridays, and N Sync marionette dolls (I had Lance!). I also think of the music. While some may dismiss much of it as mere blips on the shitty pop music landscape, I appreciate it. Sure, some of it was cheese-tastic, but it was fun and eclectic, charming in its own way. So let's re-visit some of these gems, shall we?

Dreams--The Cranberries



I became obsessed with this song after hearing it on the preview for The Babysitters Club and was hell-bent on owning it. Children, back the days before MP3s, if you wanted only one song, you had to either a) wait until it came on the radio and tape it or b) buy the entire CD that song was on. And back in the days before Google, the only way you'd know what CD you were looking for was if either you or somebody you knew was a musical encyclopedia. If that wasn't the case, then it was trial-and-error: buy a random CD by the artist, and hope that your song was on there. Which is what I did. I'm pretty sure I single-handedly boosted The Cranberries' record sales looking for this damn song, which I finally found on album four or five.

Good--Better Than Ezra



This was another song I wanted after hearing it on the Babysitters Club trailer. At some point, I transferred it from the CD to tape, which I lost, then serendipidiously found again in high school. When I mentioned this one morning to my group of friends before class, my friend Lance said, "I found a blank tape with a Better Than Ezra song on it! I think all tapes automatically come with a Better Than Ezra song." To this day, I have no idea how I remembered that exchange. (P.S. Does anybody else think it ruins the song just a teensy little bit when he says, "Yeah, that's right!" at the very end?)

Graduation (Friends Forever)--Vitamin C



So after this song came out, pretty much every graduating class in the goddamn universe named it "their" song. Smart on Vitamin C's part. What's a better way to stay relevant long after your musical career is over than to come out with a song so timeless, graduating classes are still calling dibs on it to this day? And this is a random change of subject, but I never got what the chick in video saw in that dope in the orange shirt. He looks like he probably failed his senior year. Twice. Hey, speaking of graduation songs...

Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)--Baz Luhrmann



This is one of those songs I appreciate more listening to as an adult than I did as a teenager. I don't know, I guess I can relate to much of what the lyrics talk about nowadays. Back when it came out, it just bothered me that it was some dude talking over music.

Steal My Sunshine--Len



I STILL JAM OUT TO THIS SONG AND I MAKE NO APOLOGIES. It's upbeat, it's fun, and it reminds me of summer. Boo-ya.

C'est La Vie--B*Witched



This song is so bad it's good. Matching jeans/jacket combo, high-wasted pants that are triple-cinched at the waist, random dogs, bad choreography, and awful lyrics FTW! I didn't know Judy Greer did a turn in a girl band back in the day!

Alright, kids, as much as it pains me, I have to stop this memory train. I could add about 50 more songs, but there just ain't room for all that.What are some of your favorite songs from this time period?

Interview with JTT!

Question: Did I, with vague wording, entice you to click on the title of this post, thinking that I, lowly SVB, interviewed the one and only Jonathan Taylor Thomas?

Answer: Yes. Yes, I did. I make no apologies. Because while I myself did not interview the late 90s teen heartthrob, Entertainment Weekly did. To be honest, the interview was actually pretty boring. The kid (well, he's--gasp!--30, so I guess he's no longer a kid) hasn't done much of anything besides a few stints on Smallville and Veronica Mars and generally LIVING LIKE A BOSS:

"I’ve been going to school, and traveling quite a bit, getting to read a lot of books I’ve wanted to for quite some time."

But no matter. Just the mere mention of the letters "JTT" transports me back to a time when piles of Bop Magazines took up way too much space under my bed, posters of JTT were plastered on my walls, and Home Improvement and Man of the House were considered regular viewing.They also bring back the memory of when Meagan and I co-wrote a fan letter and decorated the envelope with sayings such as, "I <3 JTT" and "Home Improvement RULES!" in colorful magic marker, because BOP said that decorated envelopes were more likely to get read by the celebrity. Here's what we got in return:

A mass-generated auto-response.

Don't worry, we weren't disappointed. Receiving a picture of JTT, even one as impersonal as an auto-response, was still thrilling. He could just do no wrong. We understood that he was very busy filming Pinocchio and Tom and Huck.We didn't hold it against him.

Entertainment Weekly also organized a Home Improvement cast reunion, which made me curse the fact that I do not read entertainment magazines. Sometimes the loss of a few brain cells is worth it to see Al Borland still working that flannel LIKE A BOSS in 2012. But you know who I was most surprised by? Patricia Richardson and Heidi. They are looking phenomenal. And as for JTT? Aside from being a little pale with messy hair, he's still adorable. In other words, I'd still hit it. 

I'm going to wrap up this nonsensical post with the wedding scene from Man of the House because it's awesome and features that bad-ass Enigma song that I will forever associate with the movie. 

Math: My Arch Nemesis

All throughout my academic career, math plagued me. God, how I hated it. I'd sit in class and stare at those cold, hard numbers, taunting me. At the word problems that appeared to ask me to figure out what time the train would arrive at the station if it was going X miles an hour and it was Y time, but what really said, "HAHAHAHAHA YOU'RE FUCKED, VAN BLARICUM! YOU'LL NEVER FIGURE ME OUT!" Ask me to identify the themes and motifs in a piece of literature and explain their significance to the story, I could do that easily. Ask me to solve one of those train word problems, and my only answer would be, "Unless I'm on the train taking me out of this damn math class, I don't care!"

If you were to ask me if I considered myself good or bad at math, I'd answer most assuredly that I was bad. After all, when confronted with a more complex algebraic equation than 2x + 2x = ? My eyes would glass over and my brain would turn to mush, or to daydreaming about all the other stuff I'd rather be doing. In reality, I would probably have been very good at math had I applied myself a little harder and quit talking to my friends and passing notes during math class. It didn't come to me as easily as English did, but had I worked a little harder, put in a little extra study time, I probably could have made it easier on myself. But math was a complete bore, and so I would mentally check out pretty much every time I went to class.

When I was in second grade, my academic laziness regarding math translated to me having to go to a remedial math class, called Chapter 1. (To this day, I have no idea why it was called Chapter 1--perhaps it indicated that this was the first chapter in the story of my journey to not be a retard when it came to math?) I don't remember having to take a test to qualify for Chapter 1; all I remember is that one day during the math portion of class, another teacher came to fetch me and a few other students, and we would go to a different classroom and do all sorts of math crap. I didn't learn a damn thing in Chapter 1. All I remember from that class was that there was a little boy, John, who had a major ear wax problem, and that the teacher lent me this LeapFrog-type computer toy for me to play math games on. (Incidentally, I loved that toy, but I think it was because my parents refused to buy any sort of game console for me and my sister growing up, so any sort of video or computer game, even math-themed ones, was awesome.)

I think my Chapter 1 teacher must have suggested to my parents that practicing with flash cards at home would be beneficial for me as well, because every day after school, Pops would go over them with me. He had good intentions--after all, what parent wants to admit that their kid is the dumb one in a certain subject?--but he was like a drill sergeant. I looked forward to Flash Card Time with about as much enthusiasm as a root canal. For about half an hour, I was bombarded with card after card of simple addition and subtraction problems while my dad's patience steadily chipped away. He would start off by trying really hard to give me little tricks to solve the problems, but eventually he became a bundle of raw nerves and said things like, "YOU SHOULD JUST KNOW THINGS LIKE 9+8. THERE SHOULD BE NO REASON FOR YOU TO COUNT ON YOUR FINGERS!" and, "DO YOU WANT TO BE THE ONLY KID WHO STILL COUNTS ON HER FINGERS? EVERYBODY ELSE DOESN'T COUNT ON THEIR FINGERS!" Eventually I wised up and started counting on my fingers in my head, a tactic that made my dad think I was improving while managing to get one over on him simultaneously. After that, and even up until college, I refused to use flash cards as a studying device.

Math started to click around seventh grade, but I still encountered my fair share of obstacles, which really meant that I would half-ass problems that I thought were stupid, like word problems, proving geometric theorems, and imaginary numbers. These three things could be separate blog posts unto themselves, so I will only say this: I didn't see the point in spending a lot of time on them, since I didn't see the point in learning them to begin with. (I mean, seriously imaginary numbers? WTF? What purpose to do they serve, and why bother studying them? That's like trying to take out pet health insurance on a unicorn.) However, I was measurably better than I was in elementary school, which resulted in me being asked to be part of the Mathletes program in eighth grade, an invitation I found both flattering and ironic. I think the Mathletes went to competitions and did math problems; I don't know for sure, since I went to one meeting, said to myself, "Yah right!" and peaced out.

I'm glad I'm finally at a place in my life where I don't use any math function more complicated than simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I'm glad the days are over in which I had to account for pi. I'm glad I no longer have to figure out what time the train will get at the station unless I have an actual train ticket in my hand. I've made it out of the Math Forest and now I'm in the sunny clearing of Real Life, where algebraic equations, geometric proofs and the Pythagorean Theorem are nothing but distant memories. Hallelujah. Can I get a witness?