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August edition of...Sites I visit

• The "What's Your Brand Mantra?" blog has some interesting things to say about brand extension.

• The Church of the Customer (a title that a former coworker found to be a bit much) profiles Moleskine, a product that I have bought it the past year, and how wee bit of word of mouth and a devoted fan base turned it around.
  

Ah, Robin

I make no real secret that I like to watch the soaps. One that I kinda grew up with is General Hospital, which has swung back to being a bit more about a hospital than it has in years past. There was actually a time that I said that ER was more like what General Hospital was supposed to be with its 'mountain of misfortune' to be suffered be the Corday-Greens and the endless rounds of the triangles of Carter-Abby-Luka. I actually referred to General Hospital as 'the Sopranos present: General Hospital' because of their unrelenting focus on the mob storylines.

One character that I grew up with a bit was Robin Scorpio. Her essential biography is that she is the daughter of two secret agents-the British Anna Devane and the Aussie Robert Scorpio. She is currently one of the doctors at General Hospital and she had HIV. Robin is a sweet kid whose weathered her parents' James Bondesque lifestyle and their deaths (though now both are back alive). She tries to help her friends and has been known to show kindness to her enemies, which of course are very few.

She contracted HIV through her first real boyfriend Stone. The storyline gave actress Kimberley McCullough another Daytime Emmy win. After Stone's death and through some interesting plotting, Robin becomes involved with Jason Morgan, who used to be "the good son" Jason Quartermaine but for a severe head injury caused by his disaster of an older hald brother AJ. Robin and Jason resurrect each other in the relationship and some of the best moments of that subpar period of GH come from their storyline (the others come from Robin's future nemesis, Carly Roberts).

Robin loses Jason first to the gangster life he leads with Sonny and then next to the morass of a situation surrounding baby Michael where only in the soap world can a person become a villain because they did the right thing and told the baby daddy that he is the baby daddy instead of lying about it and covering it up. Robin went to Paris after being rejected by Jason.

We heard of her in passing over the years on GH, usually around World AIDS Day. Tons of fan fiction apparently sprung up as well.

The actress who portrayed her appeared in some good roles on some good tv shows. I thought she was the best thing about the "Party of Five" episode, where she interviewed Julia for the school newspaper. Her character was a bit off but wiser than the angst-filled Julia ever could be.


She did show up on GH briefly from time to time, most notably when venerable old Lila Quartermaine died. She and Jason seemed okay with each other. This particular appearance foreshadowed Robin's return to GH, which pleased me of course but which meant that some loose ends would need to be resolved for a Jason-Robin reunion.

Since Robin's departure, Jason:
-had been almost completely involved with Carly, who ended up marrying Sonny Corinthos-his saviour, boss and best friend
-had been involved with Elizabeth Webber, who was available at the time
-had been married to Courtney, Sonny's half-sister by their dad Mike and the catalyst of one of the worst conflicts Sonny and Jason would have up to that time
-had been married to Brenda, Robin's best friend (for appearance's sake)
-had been involved with and engaged to Sam

I accepted the fact that Robin's return meant that Sam would still be in the picture-for the moment. I operated under the delusion that Sam would meet some unfortunate accident being that she is dangerprone and after a suitable morning period, Jason would resume life with Robin. When the GH storyline about the massive trainwreck emerged, and the hype mentioned some fatalities, I prepared to mourn Sam. I did not hate her as a character. She has some really stupid moments but she grew on you and for actress Kelly Monaco, it was definitely a better character than that Livia-whatever character she played on the now defunct "Port Charles."

Unfortunately, Sam didn't bite the big one and the storyline progressed towards a marriage between Jason and Sam, with Robin cheerfully playing the best friend and trying to get Jason the medical attenion he needed at the time.

I lost all hope until an fatal virus storyline hit and again fatalities were promised and again I thought, "Well, it was nice knowing you, Sam. Of course suitable mourning period-reunion of Robin and Jason."

Again, I was wrong. Sam's brother died, setting off a quest for her and Jason to find Sam's birth family. Robin was being pushed towards the Drake family-especially Dr. Patrick Drake the son. And to make everything entirely silly Robin's father comes back from the dead.

Well since then Robin has been engaging in typical soap opera relationship dynamics with one Dr. Patrick Drake, who I honestly can't stand. I totally hate it when soaps create handsome characters like this, throw a perfectly normal character at it and while the normal character tries to 'redeem' the other character, both engage in some pretty childish behaviour. Since her return, Robin has engaged in some really dumb behaviour. She essentially has stooped to Carly's behaviour on some occasions. At times reading the character's blog has been depressing-not just because the more I read, the more I realize that GH will do everything they can not to put Jason and Robin back together. It has been depressing because I read about a character that at times has put up with bad behaviour, ambiguity and tit for tatting.

So now as of this writing:
Sam and Jason have split (for now with the option of reunion)-good.
Jason has slept with Elizabeth Webber Spencer-less good.
Patrick might have contracted HIV and this is the clever tactic that GH has used to put he and Robin together. (Yeah, a pos couple-how cool is that...yeah I'm being sarcastic-but you know that a writer had that deep thought.)


All in all though, I still am fond of Robin. I hope that her lot improves. I hope that her character's life will involve more than HIV storylines and stupid high school love triangles.
I also hope that it will involve Jason again.

Drive-By post

Nothing to say much today. I am simultaneously trying to make a list, answer the telephone and blog. I can't believe that I am listening to "Ol' Dan Tucker." I am told this is from the Bruce Springsteen concert which was a tribute to Pete Seeger.

Now they are playing "If I Had a Hammer..."

Gotta love 89.7 FM in Boston.

Have you ever...

Have you ever gone so far down a path only to discover that it was the wrong path and now you either have no idea how to get on the right path or that it's killing you that you wasted time and have to redirect?

I am experiencing this at this moment.

I know that I am not the only person, who experiences such a malaise of feeling. I was immediately reminded of John Adams and his period as an American representative in Europe during the Revolutionary War. He came out of it, this malaise. He secured a major loan from the Dutch and despite the French ministers and the members of the Continental Congress who defamed him and curtailed his ministerial duties in regards to France, he signed the Treaty of Paris and won the points that were important.

I recognize that I have made a few wrong choices and that no amount of adaptation on my part will change the fact that my current job and life are not a good fit for me. So I must put my hand to the plow and plow my row until I find the place where I belong.

It is frustrating because I would like to spend my energy on other things. However, I made the choice that I made and I must own up to my impulsiveness.

And so concludes our "vague life lesson" for today.

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August's Random Observations

(Another new feature I introduce!)

-Castro
I noticed that lots of Cuban exiles in the Miami community celebrated Castro's temporary transference of power as if they were liberated. Does that mean should Castro die or abdicate, they will all be going home?

-An Inconvenient Truth
With heat like this, global warming continues to become more inconvenient as time goes on.

-Kronkite
As Greg Kiln said, "they don't write like that any more."