Recap of Scrubs Episode “My Words of Wisdom”
After such a heart-breaking episode last week, Scrubs returns to its usual humor, even adding a pinch of fun to Laverne’s funeral.
The show opens with Dr. Cox furiously questioning Jordan’s naming their newborn baby girl Jennifer Dylan (whose initials are JD). He also suggests that maybe she (Jordan) could start assuming “domestic responsibilities” now that she has given birth and is coming home the next day. Jordan gleefully replies with “Pass!”
Next, we go straight to Laverne’s funeral, where everyone is dealing in his or her own way. JD starts daydreaming of his own funeral, where he fakes his death just to get a hug and an “I love you” from Dr. Cox, who then breaks JD’s neck for scamming him. Before the ceremony ends, the reverend suggests that everyone celebrate Laverne’s life and try to incorporate some of her dogmas into his or her own life, such as opening up to loved ones, taking time for yourself, and putting yourself into others’ shoes.
Dr. Cox quickly attaches himself to the “taking time for yourself” adage by vowing to spend 20 minutes of everyday to reflect on his life. He even escapes into his own soundproof glass bubble in the hospital lounge, only to be disturbed every few minutes by a needy intern. Even Carla comes to him, upset that everyone acts like Laverne never existed. He reassures her that not everyone grieves in the same way, and you can’t tell them how to feel or act in the first place.
Meanwhile, Turk and JD encounter patient, who is a deaf child and whose father is also deaf. Scouring the hospital for someone who knows sign language, the Janitor pops up with an outlandish story about a gorilla that inspired him to learn signing. After a few tests are run, Turk and JD realize the child’s hearing could be repaired with a simple surgery. With the Janitor as their mediator, they break the joyful news to the father, who, surprisingly, refuses to sign the surgery release form.
At the same time, Elliot and Keith face relationship issues that focus on their reversed roles: Elliot is more like the guy, only wanting sex and rarely speaking her feelings; whereas Keith is more like the girl, tired of the games and wanting the relationship to go further than just sex. Elliot claims she is only trying to be the best girlfriend possible by giving him everything she thinks guys would like. However, while hanging out at the bar, Carla points out that Elliot only got close to one guy, JD, who broke her heart, and since then, she’s sabotaged every relationship she’s had. The fact is Elliot is too terrified of making herself vulnerable to another guy.
And now come the much-hoped for resolutions:
Even though Dr. Cox gripes constantly about not getting any “me” time, Dr. Kelso points out that he actually adores being needed, or else why would he keep giving in to helpless interns, friends, and family who constantly need him?
Dr. Cox goes on to solve Turk and JD’s problem: get the mother’s consent for the surgery. Once the child goes off to the OR, Turk, JD, and the Janitor realize the reason the father didn’t want the surgery was because it was the main way he connected with his child, and he didn’t want to lose that.
Elliot gathers up the guts to spill her guts to Keith. Like always, she starts off with what she thinks is a relatable story (this one’s about her childhood dog biting her). Even though Keith misses the story’s point, Elliot still pulls through to tell him “I love you.”
Using Myspace to Generate Traffic for Your Website, Blog, and Much More!
Unless you’ve been living in a bomb shelter since 1950 (think Blast from the Past), then you might have heard of a little thing called MySpace. It’s initial purpose intended to allow people from all across the world connect with similarly-minded individuals. However, it’s now become a place to collect hot, sexy, cute, or just plain weird pictures of other people (usually referred to as “friends”).
Well, about three weeks ago, this information finally clicked in my head: I can easily use MySpace to generate tons of traffic to my Squidoo lenses. And now I’ll tell you how you can do it, too.
To see an example of how a profile and images can be laid out, visit my MySpace profile. Don’t forget to add me to your friends!
1. If you don’t have a MySpace profile, or if you have one that you’d rather keep as “real friends only,” create a new profile under a dedicated email address so as not to overload your main email account. You can easily create a new address with providers such as Gmail (my fave), Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail, AOL, and many others.
2. The main strategy behind generating traffic is collecting as many friends as possible, so you need to make your profile very appealing. I suggest using MyGen.co.uk or MySpaceGeek.net to find unique, eye-catching layouts for your profile. If you already have a specific theme in mind, you can always Google it to see what turns up….like “artistic MySpace layouts.” You usually have to place layout codes in the “About Me” section.
3. Next, you need to add links to your website, blog, Squidoo lenses, or anything else you want to send traffic towards. A great way to do this is by using pictures that also act as links. At first the process of doing this might seem complicated, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be doing it in your sleep.
* First, find the photos you want to use as links. Try to pick images that convey what the link leads to. For example, for my lens on Skimmer Shoes, I found an image of skimmer shoes. You can easily perform a Google image search and download the pictures you want.
* Then, you need to upload these photos to an image-hosting website, such as PhotoBucket, ImageShack, or ImageHosting. You will also need to resize any large photos down to thumbnail or email/website size so as not to overload your MySpace profile with too-large images.
* Now it’s time to add these images as links to your profile. Wherever you choose to place the image/link codes, that is where it will show up in your profile, so I suggest using your “About Me” section. Here’s the basic code you need:
<a href=”http://www.yoursite.com” title=”My Site.”><img border=”2″ src=”http://yourimage.jpg”/></a>
All you have to do is replace the addresses and words in the quotes with your own addresses and words. Inside the first set of quotes is the web address of the site, blog, lens, etc., that you want to link to. The second set is the title you want the image to have when someone hovers over it. The last set is for the image you want to use. You can also change the number after “border=2″ to any number you want to create a border for your image. Other than changing these specifications, leave the code exactly how it is, including all quotations, spaces, and characters.
* You can also use the code <br> to force a line break between images. This helps when you have a lot of images that you don’t want to appear cluttered.
4. Now it’s time to go find some friends to add! It usually helps to start off with people you already know, then ask if they will pass you on to their friends, and so on. You can also browse through millions of profiles using the “Search” and “Browse” features on MySpace. If you’re looking for a specific audience, you can refine your search to only locate your potential target. For example, I have a lot of pages on shopping for women’s clothing, so using the MySpace “Search” feature, I entered the keyword “shopping” and selected “General Interest” to find people interested in shopping. It’s really that easy.
You can also search the Internet for “friend adders” or “whore trains” to find others looking for friends and to submit your profile to be added by hundreds of people everyday. Word of warning: Most of these websites ask for you to input your friend id, which is the last few numbers of your profile’s web address. While it is ok to submit your friend id (adders & trains use it to show your profile on their pages), be wary of posting bulletins directly from one of these websites. I’ve learned the hard way that most of the time, they will hack your account, which causes your MySpace profile to be blocked until you change your password! These sites can be very helpful in adding hundreds of friends everyday, just be smart about it!
Other helpful tips:
- MySpace allows you to add up to 400 friends per day. Even though some friend adder sites claim they can bypass this limit, don’t believe it. Always keep the limit in mind and try to keep your requests down to 100-200 per day.
- Try to stay in touch with at least 10-20 friends that you have a genuine interest in. This will keep you appearing to be just another friend collector with nothing good to contribute.
- Post bulletins, blogs, and send messages to interested friends when you create or update a new site, blog, lens, etc., to add some major traffic.
- Always try to post “Thanks for the add!” or similar messages to new friends. You can search the web for “MySpace thanks for the add comments” to find animated, glitter words, and other neat comments to post. But be mindful if the person’s profile says he/she doesn’t allow html comments because then your glitzy comment won’t show up.
- Another way to keep people coming to your profile is to post “Happy birthday” comments when it’s their birthday. To find out about upcoming birthdays, go to the main page of your MySpace account (where it allows you to update your profile, view bulletins, etc.), scroll down to just below your friends’ pictures, and click the “View Upcoming Birthdays” link. Like with “Thanks for the add” comments, you can easily search the web for unique birthday comments.
- Join groups that highlight your interests. It’s really simple: just click the “Groups” tab and choose a category or search for a specific interest, like dolphins or scrapbooking. Some groups have certain rules you must abide by in order to be a member, so pay attention to those (they’re usually found on the group’s main page or message board).
- Post attractive/appealing/interesting photos of yourself or artwork. I know it’s superficial, but the more appealing your profile (including your default image) can go a long way in attracting friends and traffic.
Want evidence of how well my process works? Check out the stats for my Skimmer Shoes lens. Keep in mind, this lens has only been active for about two weeks now.
As you can see, this lens is already #386 out of over 100,000 lenses on Squidoo, and it’s had over 200 visitors. Sweet, huh?
Again, don’t forget to visit my MySpace profile and add me to your friends list!
If you found this method helpful, please leave a comment telling how it worked for you or any suggestions or questions you may have.
Recap of Tearful Scrubs Episode “My Long Goodbye”
April 5th’s episode starts out with Dr. Cox shaving his head and finding out at the last minute that Jordan is having her C-section that day.
Back at the hospital, the entire Sacred Heart staff deals with the tragic situation of Laverne, who went into a coma after being in a serious car accident. Elliot deals by over-sexing her boyfriend Keith, Turk and JD try to pull childish pranks like bashing mailboxes, and Carla [quite possibly Laverne's best friend at the hospital] doesn’t deal with it at all. Throughout the entire episode, she is followed around by the “ghost” of Laverne. It’s obvious that Laverne’s dire situation affects Carla more than the others, yet she is unable to cope with the possibility of losing such a close friend. She even tells everyone to stop saying their goodbyes, and reminds them that people have come through similar situations.
Meanwhile, Dr. Cox is still managing Jordan and the birth of his second-born, a baby girl. Seeing as how everyone is pre-occupied with Laverne’s well-being and no one knows that Jordan is having her baby, Cox entrusts JD to do one simple thing: pick up his son Jack at daycare. But JD, being so overwhelmed by Cox’s trust, zones out to daydream about being the new baby’s godfather and doesn’t hear a word Cox says. To avoid losing this trust as quickly as he gained it, JD pretends he heard every word. Cox later confronts him to ensure Jack was picked up, triggering JD’s memory and prompting him to ask the speed-metal delivery guy to pick up Jack.
After the birth of Jordan’s baby, Cox becomes the bearer of bad news to the rest of the staff: Laverne is brain-dead, and her family chooses to take her off life support. However, Cox must still deal with Jordan wanting everyone to give congratulations for the new baby. The problem is, he doesn’t want the birth of his daughter to always be associated with Laverne’s death, so he swears JD to secrecy until after she passes away. But Elliot, with her biological clock ticking away, “smells” the birth, and so begins the unwanted celebration.
And still, Laverne’s presence follows Carla like a ghost, as she steadily tries to keep working and avoid any negative thoughts. Turk and Elliot band together to help her: Elliot shares a story about not getting a yearbook signature from a girl in school, which Turk translates as “say goodbye to those you love while you still can.” Carla finally gives in and goes to Laverne’s side, where she reflects on her first day at the hospital and all the times Laverne was there to help. The scene could make Hitler cry.
The episode ends with Cox, Turk, Elliot, Dr. Kelso, Carla, and the Janitor having a beer in the local bar. Somehow JD got left behind at the hospital, where he entertains Jordan. Being slightly pissed that she didn’t get a welcome-wagon for her baby, she decides to make JD the godfather and name the baby Jennifer Dylan (whose initials would be JD).
