I'm fed up with the (federal) college bureaucracy!

Earlier today, I had an incident with my current university campus that I believe further reinforces my opinion that the place simply can't handle anybody "different" from their more "typical" students; that is, those who may or may not be some sort of minority student without any physical/emotional/mental/social/etc. differences, generally middle-class, willing to put up with everything the campus throws their way while still expecting borderline private college/university type $$$$ from them! This all goes back to last Wednesday, A.K.A. the first day of the late winter/early spring semester, when I kept wandering around this building which (foolishly enough) has dorms located from the main entrance stretching up a bunch of floors (somewhere between 10 and 20, in my estimation), and classrooms located (again, foolishly enough) off to the side of the building, down a flight of stairs, and inside a small hallway connected to absolutely nothing else! Initially not knowing that such was the case, I headed for that building, had second thoughts, headed to another building for approximately a half-hour or so, and headed back to that building… Once inside, I headed inside the dorm building, thinking that the classrooms would be somewhere underneath it, but after heading down one staircase, heading back up to the main floor via an elevator located there, and that was when all the trouble started… Once I tried to leave the building the second time, I got stopped by a few dorm "employees" (in reality, a few students with a tiny corner office or whatnot), who proceeded to call police to check on me, not that I wanted or needed that sort of attention! Once they arrived and noticed that I wasn't communicating (not that I would have done so under any circumstances), they called in emergency medical services, probably thinking that some medical crisis would be bound to happen at any moment… They proceeded to search all kinds of information on myself that I didn't even know they had, and even if they didn't, I wasn't planning on giving them anything to begin with! The EMS people proceeded to get my family involved, which, out of all the people I would've wanted to mess with if I was one of them in that situation, it would be them, since they are among the few people who know what I've had to deal with my entire life without making any foolish assumptions or stereotypical beliefs! Fast forward to Friday, when I was back there after my scheduled day off (which will come even more in handy come mid-April!) to take my economics class with this relatively easy-going and quite culturally aware Greek-born-and-(probably) raised professor… Over the month-long winter break that these places provide between semesters (which, as you people know, I certainly took advantage of!), I decided to put two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays (accounting and writing), three classes on Tuesdays (economics, psychology, and statistics), and two on Fridays (economics and psychology)! As the beginning of the semester approached, however, with snow cancelling (yes, people; that's a slight bit of "Canadian English" for you!) what would've been the first day back, pushing that to Wednesday, that psych class got dropped out of its 4-5 P.M. window, leaving the economics class by itself on Fridays and the economics and statistics classes on Tuesdays… Now, I'm not normally the type of person to start controversies, seeing as I've already provided my "2 cents" on quite a few of them (no matter how minor or major they've been) previously on this blog, but this is where I felt compelled to start a bit of a "ruckus" with a place I already like starting quite a few of those with during the fall semester, and even quite a few years before I started there, as I took myself down to the Princeton campus twice, up to Harvard once, and got accepted to Temple University in Philadelphia, all before I started @ M.S.U., which only became a university in 1994! With all that having been said and done, I'd like to move on from talking about my current institution to focus on some others that I believe would serve myself and many others better than M.S.U., some of which are located right here in the Garden State!

As I already mentioned above, I visited Princeton twice in back-to-back years (2011 and 2012), once on a more general tour of that campus, and once on a more engineering-focused tour… Needless to say, I was more enamored by the campus the first time around, but I noticed something on both my visits there that the crap place I'm currently attending could take notice of: They might charge almost $40,000 each year, in line with its fellow Ivy League schools, but unlike my current place, they actually provide enough financial aid to their (4-year, since, from what I've noticed, this place doesn't accept transfers…) students to allow them to graduate with only around between one-third or one-half of their expected debt, not to mention the brilliant academic programs that virtually guarantee Princeton grads any career they desire in their post-grad lives! 

This place is no Princeton, but it did accept me the first time around (approximately a year ago), so if they're willing to keep that in the back of their minds, hopefully with a cost lower than the approximately $30,000 they were charging around that time when I applied for them, and they accepted me… Before I changed my mind due to the extreme out-of-state costs here, I was planning out my whole academic and even social life, which, considering the recent regional and even national success of their basketball program, most likely would've involved me visiting their basketball arena (the Liacouras Center, located in "Center City" Philadelphia) quite often!

Unlike Temple, which was charging a little less than $30,000 for out-of-state applicants and students, this place charged a little over $27,000 and change right here in the Garden State, so that coupled with its location (Glassboro, N.J., which I don't consider the most accessible location in this state!), I changed my mind on this place even sooner than I turned down Temple's initial admission offer!

There's a reason that this place is referred to around here as "the state university of N.J."; not only has this place been around since before this country even gained its independence (1766 and the 1781 British surrender, respectively), and it's grown to the point where it has three campuses (one of which I visited back in early 2006, when one of my older cousins was looking at a few campuses himself) in Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and Newark and merged with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of N.J. around the middle of last year!

Not only is this place one of the few that's within an hour or so of my place right near N.Y.C., but it's also quite highly ranked in diversity (which I'm glad they take pride in) and the "social sciences", which I believe includes economics/finance, which I'm planning on majoring in!

This was college hockey at its most extreme!

http://nesn.com/2014/01/coaches-restrained-in-wild-ncaa-ice-hockey-fight-video/

Normally, you only hear about fighting in hockey taking place in the pros-the NHL, & all the "junior" leagues below it-where such activity is actually permitted. The fact that a fight took place during a Saturday night college hockey game, however, is another story entirely! Last year, the 1st installment of what I presume has now become an annual event between Schnectady, N.Y.-based (& #3 in the nation as of last week, for those of you who follow this stuff) Union College & Troy, N.Y.-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute took place, & for the most part, that game managed to have the "look & feel" of college & "junior" league hockey both at once (more on that later), given that the city of Albany, the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC), the AHL, & many more parties agreed to let the 2 teams battle it out on neutral ice roughly halfway between both of their respective campuses. (For the record, Union won that game, 3-2, in front of an almost empty upper level & mostly students from the respective schools.) This year's 2nd annual matchup was only slightly different, although I have a feeling everybody involved with getting this game going had anticipated a bigger crowd than last year, since not only did arena staff open a few sections in the upper level (which explains why I was in section 229, which, in that building, is right above center ice, this year, despite being down in 1 of the corners last year), but they also kept all the students downstairs, split roughly half-&-half between both schools! The game itself was quite close considering the 2 teams' records entering the night, as RPI was barely below .500 (9-10-4) whereas Union had just 1 conference loss (& was 16-4-3 overall) all season going in. True to their records, Union struck 1st:

UNI	1	-	0	5x6 SH		Shayne Gostisbehere (7) (unassisted)		8:04

As those of you who follow hockey somewhat often might be able to tell, that goal came shorthanded, which is truly something, considering neither teams' power play units converted anything at all the entire game! 

1st period penalties were as follows:

REN-1 Ryan Haggerty (2-Charging) UNI 0x1

3:20

UNI-1 Mike Vecchione (2-Roughing) REN 0x1

6:58

REN-2 BENCH (2-Too Many Players) (Served by Ryan Haggerty) UNI 0x2		19:52

The 2nd period played out much like the 1st, with both teams seemingly struggling to generate many offensive opportunities, since it seemed as if they were both trying to hang back & shut down the neutral zone instead of attacking. Nevertheless, RPI did even up the contest about a quarter of the way through the period, except for 1 main difference:

REN	1	-	1	6x6		Milos Bubela (4) (Jacob Laliberte/18, Curtis Leonard/8)		5:17

That goal might not have come shorthanded, as Union's did, but after its 1st goal, it seemed as if RPI was even more desperate to find ways to score another 1, & it also seemed as if Union was pinned in its own zone practically the entire rest of the period! As it were, no more goals were scored either way, & the penalty situation was as follows: 

UNI-2 Daniel Ciampini (2-Hooking) REN 0x2

1:51

UNI-3 Matt Hatch (2-Boarding) REN 0x3		10:06

REN-3 Brock Higgs (2-Tripping) UNI 0x3

11:10

REN-4 Guy Leboeuf (2-Boarding) UNI 0x4		12:31

REN-5 Milos Bubela (2-Boarding) UNI 0x5		17:37

The 3rd period saw more of an increase in tension than it did anything else, as both teams decided that getting their "enforcers" out would intimidate their opponents into retreating & just have to withstand an onslaught of scoring opportunities against them. Despite the emphasis on "dirty", "rough", & just overall physical play, there would be a breakthrough that would end up holding up as the game-winner:

REN	2	-	1	6x6	GW LL	Mike Zalewski (5) (Brock Higgs/12, Ryan Haggerty/11)		16:22

Suddenly faced with a 1-goal deficit, the exact same situation into which Union placed RPI last year, the Union coaches decided to (A) call their 1 allotted timeout & (B) pull their goaltender, creating a so-called "empty net" situation for the last 2:21 of the game. From there, Union proceeded to blast RPI from all angles, both possible & seemingly impossible, forcing RPI to use up its timeout with just 24 seconds left in a game that everybody in attendance, myself included, thought would require a little bit of 5-minute overtime just a few minutes earlier! After that 2nd timeout, however, Union just couldn't keep the offensive barrage going as it had between timeouts, & with that, RPI had seemingly claimed victory in the 2nd installment of what appears to be 1 of college hockey's newest rivalries, at least in its current neutral site format! However, there was still more to come after the final buzzer... 

the Union penalties:

UNI-4 Mat Bodie (2-Roughing, 5-FACEMASKING, 10-D.Q. (disqualification))

20:00

UNI-7 Daniel Carr (2-Roughing, 10-M.C. (misconduct))

20:00

UNI-9 Mike Vecchione (also 2-Roughing, 10-M.C.)		20:00

UNI-11 Eli Lichtenwald (5-Fighting, 10-D.Q.)		20:00

the RPI penalties: 

REN-6 Brock Higgs (5-FACEMASKING, 10-game M.C.)

20:00

REN-8 Ryan Haggerty (2-Roughing, 10-M.C.)		20:00

REN-10 Bo Dolan (also 2-Roughing, 10-M.C.)		20:00

REN-12 Mike Zalewski (5-Fighting, 10-D.Q.)		20:00

REN-14 Luke Curadi (also 5-Fighting, 10-D.Q.)		20:00

What made that brawl even uglier, however, was the fact that Union coach Rick Bennett, himself a former (short-lived) NHL player, tried to break through everybody on both teams to get to the RPI bench & start attacking RPI coach Seth Appert (not a former NHL player) & his assistants. To his credit, Union coach Bennett did apologize to everybody involved after the game, according to NESN, which was in town from Boston: 

“I’m actually embarrassed about my actions,” Bennett said. “I apologize to our president, our athletic director, our fans, Garnet Blades members, to the RPI fans, their coaching staff, their players. That’s not how we want to be represented.”

Even though he was not the instigator of the brawl, RPI coach Appert also apologized for his role in those events: 

“I’d like to apologize for that end of the game [incident],” Appert said. “These are two heated rivals that have had some of these incidents, but we have a tremendous amount of respect for Union. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Rick Bennett and his coaching staff. When you play in a heated rivalry game, sometimes things boil over. But that’s not the way we want to be portrayed at all. I know they don’t either.”

Needless to say, a few suspensions followed, with the most notable being that Union itself suspended coach Bennett 4 games for his postgame antics, & with all that out of the way, it's time for me to tell you people some of what I found odd during the rest of the game! 

- SEPARATION ANXIETY? The bands were relegated to their own upper level sections above opposite ends of the seating area, & it seemed as if very few of either school's band members took the bus(es) with their teams & students to the game! 

- MIXED (ATTENDANCE) SIGNALS: Last year's attendance was closer to 5,000 than anything else, hence why the upper level was closed off entirely except for the bands, but this year, I guess some people somewhere somehow involved with the game must have anticipated a larger crowd, since some sections in the 220s (again, roughly between the 2 blue lines, & thus, right above center ice) were opened up to accommodate the few non-students (well, there were a few students up top in my section) who decided to show up to this year's installment of the rivalry!

- N.Y./ONTARIO STRONG: Most of the players in the 2 starting lineups were from either N.Y, or the Canadian province of Ontario, but, as always, there were a few exceptions to that general rule, as 1 of the Union starters was announced as being from somewhere in my home state of N.J., & 1 of the RPI starters was announced as being from Florida, which had me wondering what could have possibly brought them up the N.Y.S. Thruway to their respective schools! 

- SPEAKING OF CANADA, FROM CANADA: Those of you who follow broadcasting to enough of an extent probably know the practice of "DXing"; that is, picking up radio signals that would normally be cut off by the combination of interference from other, more local stations, atmospheric conditions, & lesser signal strength during the daylight hours... Well, that practice became useful Saturday night, as CKGM AM in Montréal, Quèbec, otherwise known as TSN 690, came in more & more clearly as the ride up the Thruway progressed! Upon entering downtown Albany, however, the station seemed to disappear behind the presence of other, more local stations very close to it on your typical radio dial, so it was interesting getting a Canadian perspective on all things hockey for a few minutes Saturday night!

- RECORDING, SCHMECORDING: I know most people, at least publicly, claim to prefer anything but recorded so-called "top 40" music, to even more of an extent during sporting events than any other situations, such as shopping, dining out, or working, but I, for 1, have come to accept the presence of such playlists during any sporting events played in such settings, whether the building's home team is in action, or a neutral site game such as the 1 described in this post is taking place. Last year, the 2 bands seemed to split the time about evenly, with the arena's sound crew occasionally playing pre-recorded music, but this year, I don't know whether or not the producers simply took the night off or what, since the 2 bands did approximately 99% of the music playing during this year's game! Next year, presuming the end-of-game brawl doesn't end up (no pun intended) prematurely ending (still no pun intended) this series after just 2 games, I would prefer that the arena's in-house producers & sound people give the bands a slight break from their playing duties, especially if the game ends up being as close (&, more importantly, entertaining) as the 1st 2 games were!

- WHAT'S NEXT? The NCAA East Regional in Bridgeport, CT, the last weekend of March (28 & 29, to be exact), & the Frozen Four in Philadelphia, PA 2 weeks later, each only about 1 1/2-2 hours away from my hometown!

each year's busiest travel days

daylight savings time for this year

 I don't usually think about anything longer than a month in advance that isn't already scheduled, but when you have a week off once during the spring, another long weekend a month or so later, and 3 1/2 months off between mid-May and Labor Day, as I will this year, you might as well take advantage of those opportunities! Unfortunately, not all employers tend to be so flexible with offering vacation days to their employees… Case in point: the U.S.P.S., which allows its employees to take certain weeks out of each year, but with 1 important catch: once somebody takes a week, it's 100% taken, unless, that is, the employee who takes a certain week decides to change their week for another week that they suddenly decide will be more convenient for them in the long run! That is the situation I'm facing right now, with the following weeks and long weekends off this semester, &, as of right now, nothing scheduled for me between 5/15/14 (the end of this semester) & 9/3/14 (the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year)! USA TODAY recently (& by that, I mean "recently" as in "date unknown") ran an article on the "top 10 worst travel days", and after checking all the information it could find, figured that the following days are the worst, travel-wise:

(http://traveltips.usatoday.com/top-10-worst-travel-days-106014.html)

1) Thanksgiving weekend, including Thanksgiving Eve

2) Fridays in the summer months (June, July, & August)

3) Christmas and New Year's, plus the few days before & after

4) the week of Independence Day (the irony… I'm working with somebody from EF-Education First right now on a trip that departs that week for Japan!)

5) Memorial Day weekend, A.K.A. "the unofficial start of summer"

6) spring break, which, for some of you with K-12 or college age students, might fall anywhere the beginning of March, to sometime in April, even perhaps sometime in May!

7) New Year's, which I mentioned alongside Christmas

8) Labor Day weekend, A.K.A., "the unofficial end of summer"

9) Easter, which falls in mid-April this year

10) Mardi Gras (an unofficial holiday), which the USA TODAY article calls "spring break for grown-ups"

1 of my university's breaks this semester

the other of my university's breaks this semester, during which I might take a trip elsewhere in the Northeast

Some current price averages for various U.S. cities for the middle of this upcoming summer, courtesy of expedia.com:

Another teen celeb responds to some of her critics!

UPDATE: I feel this is relevant, especially after last night, but this is even more relevant:

an actual "drag queen", if I ever saw 1!

(LINK 1: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnew92/16-reasons-to-leave-ariana-grandes-hair-alone-9qja)

As soon as I noticed this link, I figured 2 things: 1: Buzzfeed must be onto me… 2: Even if they weren't, I figured something would look familiar in the article… Sure enough, when I noticed they had ripped the FB status pictured below, I figured those 2 things once again, this time for real! Getting past the potential ripoff nature of that article, I'm sticking by my original points made a few days ago, & referring you people to them for my take on this "controversy"… (SEE BELOW)

That being said, however, considering our ages (18 1/2 & almost 21, respectively), there is something from 1800s poet Walt Whitman's poem, Song of Myself, that I believe is especially quite relevant here, in the midst of this manufactured "controversy"!
66Trippers and askers surround me,

67People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,

68The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,

69My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,

70The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

71The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,

72Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;

73These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

74But they are not the Me myself.

(LINK 2: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/19/ariana-grande-wig_n_4627171.html?ref=topbar)
This time, it's not a celeb divorcing her then-current partner to "get together with" one of her mentors when she first moved here from Canada in the early 2000s (http://anytandeverything.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-certain-former-teen-celeb-was-back-in.html)… This time, it's another, more recent teen celeb who seems to think she looks like some sort of "drag queen", when I, for 1, think she looks like anything but a "drag queen", and she has one of the most noticeable voices in music right now! This time, the celeb I'm referring is (A) one I've already (somewhat) profiled before after a previous television appearance (http://anytandeverything.blogspot.com/2014/01/just-some-belated-beginning-of-2014.html), and (B) recently won the first of what I believe will be the first of many (music) awards in her future at the 2014 People's Choice Awards! This time, the celeb I'm referring to is the 20-year-old actress-turned-singer-turned-both actress and singer (if that's even remotely possible for anybody to pull off nowadays) Ariana Grande! Like most (current) celebs, she's shown up to some live awards shows and performances recently with questionable attire (but, then again, who in Hollywood hasn't done so over the decades?), but, unlike those other celebs who've openly shown off some "cleavage" on live TV (any live MTV show from the past decade or so comes to mind immediately for me…), she's at least covered up her more questionable body parts to allow us to listen to her wonderful voice instead of getting "distracted", or even worse! Her recent comments complaining (to some extent) about "fake hair" and "drag queens", however, are a whole other story entirely… One of those stories where the celeb in ? doesn't seem to value their looks/personality/etc. enough to keep such self-deprecating comments out of the always-gossiping media! Her comments, which she revealed to the Huffington Post (which, stupidly enough, calls itself "el HuffPost" en español, which just sounds so incorrect to me!), come after the season premiere of one of her many recent Nickelodeon (which, as I told you people shortly after the New Year, waited slightly too long, in my opinion, to premiere all of those shows and give her and her fellow cast members their starts) shows, and are, at least in part, as follows:

Since I figure some of you people out there are still stuck in the 1990s when it comes to being able to display images, here's a transcript of her comments (with emphasis, plus some of my own comments, in italics): "Since people give me such a hard time about my hair, I thought I'd take the time to explain the situation to everybody. I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first 4 years of playing Cat (her most recent Nickelodeon character)… as one would assume, that completely destroyed my hair. I now wear a wig on Sam & Cat (the aforementioned Nickelodeon show). My real hair is back to brown, and I wear extensions, but I wear it in a pony tail because my actual hair is so broken that it looks absolutely ratchet (for the record, I still associate that word with toolsets, but to each their own…) and absurd when I let it down. I tried wigs (suddenly backtracks her previous statement); they looked RIDICULOUS. Tried a weave because I am working on a new project (yet another one?), and want to rip my scalp off. So, as annoying as it is for y'all (in case you haven't already heard, she's from the Sunshine State, Florida, although having been to Canada quite a few times myself throughout my life, I've gotten just as used to "Canadian English" as somebody who's lived up there for a bunch of decades now!) to have to look at the same hair style all the time, it's all that works for now (AND I'm comfortable for the first time in years)… and trust me, it's even more difficult for me to have to wait forever for my natural hair to grow back (which, as those of you who've used BOSLEY or any other hair regrowth products likely know, takes forever!) and to have to wear (this is the comment that the HuffPost seized upon for its story) more fake hair than every drag queen on Earth combined. So, PLEASE gimme a break about the hair (who ever said we were bothered by your locks?) (or just don't look at me… lol). IT'S JUST HAIR, AFTER ALL (amen to that, and I'm not even super-religious!). There are way, way, way more important things (like the fact that conspiracy theorists seem to be twisting everything into some stupid theory, but I guess that's just one of my top "pet peeves"!). Love y'all (again, she's from the Sunshine State) very much."

(EDIT #1: I've found images of a few actual drag queens for your viewing "pleasure"!) 

(some Brazilian drag queens)

It's not just "drag queens" who I think Ariana is unfairly comparing herself to, but, also, fictional creatures from fictional universes that have been thought up by some people who seem to have had too much time on their hands in some recent years to think of some unattainable reality! Among some of those fictional creatures:

There's all the proof I believe you people need that there are actual drag queens who look and sound less pleasing, and fictional creatures that look even uglier, than the promising actress-turned-singer-turned both at once profiled in this blog post!

Just some belated beginning of 2014 thoughts:

Since it's now 2014 instead of 2013, I've decided to devote this blog post to the future! As I 1st announced back in early December (a month ago, in fact), I'm in the process of writing a nonfiction take on culture; mostly recent culture, with some "old-school" culture thrown in for good measure. The main reason I've decided on nonfiction instead of fiction is because I believe my generation is perhaps too focused on fiction, allowing the educational culture in this country, which I think is also overly focused on fiction, preventing them from exploring the world around them & getting their thoughts on real life known to the general public. Initially, I thought the 1st 5 chapters (under the banner of "geopolitical chaos") would somehow fit in with "lighter" topics, but on 2nd thought, I may or may not delete that section & insert something perhaps focusing on the future of culture in general (whatever you define that to be)! I hope that once this is done sometime later this year, you people appreciate somebody from this "millennial" generation being able to effectively combine both old & new culture instead of 1 generation ******** on all other generations in the process!

On the topic of travel, I initially planned on heading to Japan this summer, then pushed that back to the summer of next year (2015); now, however, after everything combined to make the tail end of my 2013 generally lousy, I'm now considering returning to my original schedule just to be able to have somewhere to travel outside of the NYC area this year! That's not all, though… There's also the CGI U (the Clinton Global Initiative: University) that takes place every spring, & this year, it'll be taking place in the desert @ Arizona State University! I know most of you would probably tell me to get the 2 1/2 month-long Japan trip out of the way A.S.A.P. & check it off the "bucket list", but now that I've changed my mind multiple times in recent weeks, IDK what I'll decide to do, & where I'll decide to go, this year!

(somewhat relevant UPDATE: http://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/1v8i97/should_the_private_lives_of_famous_people_be_off/)

Lastly, I'd like to address what I believe is a growing problem: a lack of performers either able, willing, or both to appear on all the New Year's Eve shows that have appeared in recent years. I know everybody has different tastes from everybody else on the planet, & that those tastes change over the course of a few years, but that doesn't mean there should be an obvious conflict of interest on any of those shows! Here, in no particular order, are the hosts & guests who appeared on all the NYE shows last/this year: 

ABC: preceded by the "30 Greatest Women in Music" special, which I believe was actually quite interesting, unlike most similar "specials" I've seen on NYE & the other 364 days/365 of them in leap years!

HOSTS: Dick Clark (I know I just gave his name the whole "strikethrough" treatment, but that doesn't mean I don't miss him starting off each year!), Ryan Seacrest (DISCLAIMER: I've almost never watched A.I. throughout its decade-plus on FOX, since I think that man is so full of himself on every show he hosts, including the annual NYE show!), Jenny McCarthy (who's given me more than enough reasons to dislike her over her screwed-up beliefs about social disorders over the years, but on an occasion that only happens once each year, I usually manage to deal with them, since the alternatives are even worse!) (more on that later……), & Fergie (from Hollywood, which I think looks even more glamourous in person!)

PERFORMERS: Times Square: Blondie (who was featured during the aforementioned 2 hour special, but that was when she was still in her 30s…… Just because somebody was capable of performing in front of almost a million people way back when, doesn't mean she's capable of performing in front of over a million people nowadays!)

Icona Pop (who showed, considering both of those ladies are from Sweden, that success is not defined by international borders!)

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (these 2 were more of a 2012-13 success story than 2013-14, but nonetheless, they restored some long-lost pride to the Pacific Northwest, which I think had been slightly behind the other regions of this country in producing such successful performers!)

Miley Cyrus (insert coherent thought here) 

Barclays Center in Brooklyn: Billy Joel (who, unlike the 68-year-old Blondie, can still hold a crowd with all kinds of different songs for all kinds of different situations & places!)

Miami: Pitbull (I mean, who else could possibly "represent" Miami like that on national TV?)

Hollywood: Capital Cities (I'm just glad that they covered something with the word "holiday" in the title, since neither Vampire Weekend (who released that song in 2010) nor "the Material Girl" showed up to perform it!)

Daughtry (I 1st heard the man himself when he went solo a few years ago, & now that he's formed a band, I'm sure he'll have more success with them than he did solo!)

Jason Derulo (who I unfortunately think was somewhat drunk or something during his various performances, & I think he would've sounded so much more coherent had he not been drunk on stage!)

Fall Out Boy (if I hear that darned song once more this year, I think I'll start going (clinically) insane, since I already heard it enough between radio stations everywhere & the NHL on NBC during last spring's playoffs to not want to hear it ever again, @ least during this year!)

Florida Georgia Line (there seem to be very few full-time country groups left in the top 40, but if these guys can get a few more hits this year, I'm sure all those other country groups that briefly surfaced @ the beginning of this decade will emerge from their current hiatuses & produce a few more hits of their own on radio stations everywhere!)

Ariana Grande (who was an actress on a few Nickelodeon shows in recent years, & honestly, had I not given up on that channel before the beginning of this decade because of my belief that almost all of its 90s & earlier 2000s shows had turned to crap long ago, & that the shows that Nickelodeon attempted to revive its then-fledgling network with were trying too hard to be considered "hip" among its slowly changing target teenage/under 20-something demographics, along with its removal of all the familiar logos & consolidation of other "spin-off" channels, I would've stuck around through that mess just to witness this then-teenager's rise to fame! Putting my complaints with Nickelodeon aside, however, her story, for those of you who've followed the aforementioned network from the beginning, mirrors that of bilingual Canadian actress-turned-performer Alanis Morrisette, who started when Nickelodeon began back in the late 1970s, & then released a few hits of her own, some of which were in French along with her English-language hits! I'm not saying that Ariana needs to become bilingual or even multilingual to achieve even more success than her debut album achieved, but considering the combination of that & a few spectacular (& live) performances, I'd say she's got more success upcoming in her 2014 than most of us could ever imagine at the young age of 20!)

Jennifer Hudson (her recovery from all of her family & personal troubles over the past few years has just been just as remarkable as any young phenoms who've emerged in recent years, but that's not all; her ongoing work with such organizations as Weight Watchers, among others, has shown that there's more to national/international fame than just being able to perform either on TV, in front of thousands of people, or both on TV & in front of such large crowds!)

Enrique Iglesias (speaking of successful bilingual performers, this man has been able to do so for over a decade & a 1/2 now in both English & Spanish, & I wouldn't be surprised if he knows even more languages on top of those 2!)

Robin Thicke (he was mostly unknown for his 1st few years in the industry (or @ least I had never heard of him a few years ago), & I find it quite surprising that anybody in the industry could go so unknown for as long as he did, but between suggestive lyrics & even more suggestive music videos, he's managed to go from relatively unknown (@ least to me) to 1 of the most known performers, even if it is for "all the wrong reasons"!)

the Fray (you might remember 1 of their hits in particular for providing the soundtrack to the hit 2010 based-on-a-true-story football movie The Blind Side, & if you people don't @ least get emotional on the inside when you hear it, then I don't consider you to be a fellow human being!)

NBC: preceded by a special primetime Tonight Show with the soon-to-be-moved Jay Leno, who moves his NYE show from late night to prime time to accommodate NBC's NYE program!

HOST: Carson Daly, who gave so many other top music performers their start on Total Request Live! on MTV, & now hosts TV ratings success The Voice, which allows Mr. Daly to produce even more up-&-coming talents than he was able to produce on MTV!

HOSTESS: Jane Lynch, who also has connections to the music industry through a certain hit FOX show, & (putting my personal reservations aside for a moment) hosts Hollywood Game Night on NBC, which lets celebrities play some of the same games families have enjoyed @ home for generations!

PERFORMERS: Mariah Carey (who was also featured on the primetime ABC special, but her appearance on NBC's show allowed her to perform live instead of just being relegated to "old-school" clips of previous performances, & she also started the trend of live ABC-aired Times Square performances back in 2005!)

Blake Shelton (unlike Nashville & other cities' struggles with producing successful country music groups, their track record with producing successful solo country performers has been unmatched, & this man is just another example of successful solo country performers!)