My Favorite Moment in TV History

Now, I'm not much of a movies kind of guy. Movies can be fun, but so many of them seem to repeat each other with no unique ideas being involved. I love TV shows much more than movies because of the extra time allowed to the writers and producers to develop over years and years of time. My favorite TV show is American Dad, which was created by animation comedy genius Seth McFarlane. He is better known for his work with Family Guy, but I prefer American Dad much more as it contains much better characters and overall development. American Dad focuses around a family, as most of Seth McFarlane's show do, that is both traditional and completely radical. The family is lead by Stan Smith, who works at the CIA. This is about all the description I want to give, if you want to learn more about the show you can look it up.  My favorite moment from American Dad comes from season 2, episode 11 entitled "American Dream Factory". In this episode, Stan feels he is not moving up the ladder at his work and goes into a sort of mid-life crisis. He decides to finally enter his "dream profession" of  making festive teddy bears for the holidays. The problem is that, on his own, he is not able to make the bears fast enough to come out on time. It is at this point when Stan discovers the wonders of illegal workers, learning that he has to pay very little for their services. Eventually, the Feds catch wind Stan's business and attempt to shut him down. Acting quickly, Stan lies and says the workers are a part of his son's previously disbanded band, which is a story for another time. In order to keep up the facade, his son and the illegal workers perform "Country Roads" at the July Fourth episode. It really is a fantastic moment and a true display of how well animated characters can capture emotions on a screen. Stan realizes that the illegal Mexicans are true Americans just like him, and causes a distraction to get them to safety, giving up on his festive teddy bear dream. At the end of the episode, he sets them loose into West Virgina, where nobody apparently cares about citizenship. It's a fantastic piece of television, and if you're interested in animated comedy I would recommend checking both the episode and the whole series out.

Stereotypes

A very serious issue in society today is the issue of stereotypes. This is an issue that gets very little attention and is often quite misunderstood. A lot of stereotypes are out there today; I won't bother to go through all of them, but there are many. Now, a stereotype should not be confused with a racial slur, as is often the case; a racial slur is an ignorant remark made by a person who has no knowledge of what he or she is insulting. A stereotype is a remark made by a person taking into account the actions of a majority of a people and summarize it to include all of those people. As a Chinese, one I hear a lot is that all Chinese are fantastic in school, have parents like hawks, and love math. A lot of my friends like to make fun of these stereotypes, as they are pretty ridiculous. The truth is, however, these statements can be hurtful to a lot of different people. A common misconception is that stereotypes are good, like the one about Chinese people being good in school. Not all Chinese get fantastic grades, however, it's just a choice of those that do. Getting good grades has nothing to do with genes or family, but is just a personal choice to excel in this category. The stereotype hurts those that don't chose to to be good at school, because it tries to make them change their lifestyle. Stereotypes change normal people into jokes because they do or don't fit a preconceived notion of what they are supposed to be. Think before you speak, because you never know who is listening. The power of words is that they shape society, making it so that you can destroy a life with one sentence.

-Henry

My Favorite Time of the Year

This is pretty much my favorite time of every year. My birthday just happened so I'm still enjoying my gifts. After my birthday comes the start of spring training in the MLB, which signals the start of baseball season, which is awesome. Happening at the same time is the period called March Madness for college basketball, which means brackets, upsets and national champions. Words cannot even describe the incredible joy that comes during this time for me, and I'll be posting throughout all of it. Expect to see a ton of posts during this time, and if you want to see my live tweets during the NCAA tournament, follow me on Twitter under the handle @htk1999.

-Henry

The Big Dog

When Rascal first arrived at our house he was dwarfed both in size and stature by the big fat pug. Rascal stayed as the baby of our house until a couple years ago, when we brought in the little baby girl, Emma. Because of how miniature in size Emma is, Rascal quickly became known as the big dog, something of an irony considering he only tips the scale at about 12 pounds. But Rascal's nickname is more than just a piece of humor, it's a true fact. Rascal is made by the size of his heart and his caring nature. Rascal is always going to be my dog because of the connection that we share and his many impressive qualities. Rascal enjoys every second and takes nothing for granted. He is the sweetest dog that I will ever know, and that is a true FACT.

-Henry

A Love Ballad

Sorry I wasn't able to post yesterday, I had some computer issues. They're fixed now, so I'm back to posting!

For those who don't know, my birthday is on Sunday, February 15th. For those still awake, that is in fact the day after Valentine's Day, which is pretty interesting. I was telling my dad earlier today that Valentine's Day is both the worst and best holiday of the year. In some aspects, Valentine's Day showcases the best of society. The concept of Valentine's Day is fantastic and whoever came up with the idea should be commended. The holiday celebrates one of humanities strangest emotions: love. As quite a bit of literature states, love is incredibly powerful. The holiday itself, however, is just a waste. Somehow some idiots out there thought that the best way to celebrate love is to make tons and tons of candy. How does that make any sense? Valentine's Day means something to us all, and it's much more complicated than balloons or candy. Valentine's Day is a celebration of all the members of our lives that we cherish the most, and let's all agree to keep it that way.

-Henry

Sleeping Habits

Alright, so one of the comments I hear most from health teachers and doctors is how much sleep a teenager really needs. I have always been a bit of an odd sleeper, because I find it hard to go to sleep at night, and I end up sleeping late the next morning. Recently, I've been stepping it up a notch, as I've been busy working on ideas for my blogs and waking up very late the next day. I hear all the time from both my parents and from doctors that this type of sleeping style is unhealthy and could do damage to my brain. I look at it this way; as long as I still get the proper amount of sleeping hours, which I do, and I don't have anything the next morning, which I don't, than I think it is fine. Just like eating meals, sleeping during the night and waking in the morning is something humans developed over time. However, just like eating at odd hours, sleeping at odd hours is different, not necessarily dangerous. It's just a lifestyle choice. I don't have any fancy stats to throw at you to prove I'm right, nor do I necessarily think I'm right. I'm happy with how I live, and if that causes me to have a shorter life than so be it. I would rather live 60 happy years than 80 years with people telling me what to do and how to act. When you're 16, both of those numbers sound really high. Just my thoughts.

-Henry

This Blog...

As I announced earlier today, I have restarted both of my blogs and hope to keep the running for longer than two weeks. This blog never got off the ground, but I love the idea and hopefully anyone who reads this will love it too. I forgot to mention in my other post that I will be trying to schedule my posts for both blogs, with Otterworld being in the morning and this blog in the afternoon. I'm not sure why I chose this timing, but it appeals to me so that's what's happening. Otterworld, being more in depth content, will not be daily, but this blog probably will. I will be trying to add some voice recordings to both blogs, and I'm pretty excited about that. The Otterworld content will be made days ahead and should be very detailed, but this blog's sole purpose is to be brief and hopefully interesting. Hopefully, my ideas will get off the ground and this blog can finally hit it's stride.

-Henry