Britt's On

I’ve talked about Degrassi way, way too much in here lately, but I will say that I’ve been rewatching the earlier seasons of the new series (you could call it V1.0 of The Next Generation, we’re now in V2.0) and have been working on a drinking game to accompany my original series drinking game. If you google ‘Degrassi Drinking Game’ the majority, if not all drinking games, are dedicated to the new series. I haven’t looked at any of them in eons (last time was when I was trying to find an original series game), so my list is as original as I can be based on my own observations. I plan to update this list in future posts as I continue to spot patterns on the show.

So my friends, take a sip, or a shot, every time:

- There’s a confrontation in the bathroom (a bizarre replacement for ‘confrontation in the stairwell’ of the original series)
- Characters talk about one another using their full first and last names
- Emma protests something
- Kid Elrick is mentioned
- A teacher is totally incompetent at catching a misbehaving student
- An original series cast member makes a guest appearance (this excludes regular cast members like Snake, Mr. Raditch, and Joey, but includes Emma’s mom Spike / Christine when not credited as a regular)
- Paige says ‘hun’
- Somebody gets stuffed into or slammed against a locker
- Downtown Sasquatch or Studz plays
- Whenever someone brings up Heather Sinclair
- Sean talks about being poor
- Anytime there is a reference to Bollywood
- Someone brings up how something didn't happen on school property
- A dance is held
- Someone makes a joke about how slutty / skanky Manny is
- Emma talks about the environment
- A Degrassi couple breaks up
- Paige & Spinner call each other Honey Bee
- Spinner gets a new hairstyle
- Anytime Marco or someone else talks about Marco being gay
- Terri has a storyline or scene regarding her weight
- A new character with speaking lines shows up
- Ellie does something related to journalism
- Jimmy develops a new talent
- Holly J has a clipboard in her hands

In other news, my other random summer fixation is a pretty terrible one. I’ve become addicted to TLC’s “Say Yes To The Dress”. Although I find the show mostly horrifying – capped off most recently by a Jersey bride buying a HIDEOUS $27,000 dress – it does make me want to go wedding dress shopping. Just not at New York’s Kleinfeld’s.

I tend to like the Atlanta incarnation a little better. Although the two main stars of the show, Monte and Laurie (?), keep on using the same phrases, primarily “Jack Her Up” (to describe when they throw on a veil and some gems to give people a glimpse of the bride to be), I generally find the people that work at Laurie’s place a little more relatable. Also the prices are far more reasonable – most of the people come in with budgets of $1000 to $2000, while only a handful have spent closer to $5000, and nothing over that (again, unlike some of the horrifying episodes I’ve watched of the original series).

This isn’t the place to get into it, but I’m pretty ambivalent about the wedding hoopla that exists out there these days. I feel like its become such an ‘industry’ and that you only do all these crazy things because there’s this expectation that it’s ‘what’s done’. I went from wanting to be a wedding planner as a kid to recoiling at the thought of being a bridesmaid at least 2 or 3 more times in my life. Other than shopping for a pretty dress, getting married to my boyfriend, and having some hot damn photos, I’m not really excited about the whole wedding thing. I’ll admit though, of all the wedding concepts TLC has tried to float over the last decade (remember that terrible “do your wedding on $5,000! And your friends will plan it for you!” one?), Say Yes To The Dress is the only one that makes me the tiniest bit excited, if simultaneously repulsed. At least their staff is probably paid pretty damn well.

- Britt’s On