People Magazine, Cropped and Shopped Screech

I guess Dustin Diamond’s class reunion invitation got lost in the mail…

I was surfing on my college friend and fellow blogger’s site GlitterHorse and he did a post about one of the latest issues of People Magazine, and he pondered “Where is Screech?  WTF?”

While I wasn’t enirely shocked to see this, given Dustin Diamond’s erratic behavior over the years, but c’mon, it’s the oldest rule in the magazine biz: Controversy Sells!  What was People thinking?

Then I noticed something else.  That 1989 cast photo seemed off.  As far as I had ever seen, there weren’t any cast group photos that didn’t also include Screech.  He was a major character, after all.  So I did a little Google sleuthing, and it took no time at all to find the original–

Not only did they crop him out, but if you look closely, they also Photoshopped out the top of his afro.  That’s cold.

I’m not clear on the reasoning behind all of this.  I doubt with Dustin Diamond’s need for fame and money he would just turn down a People Magazine cover article, no matter what he thinks of the show that made him famous.  Was it a direct snub from the magazine itself?  Was his name even mentioned in the article?  Was it demanded by the rest of the cast?  I don’t get it.  Also, I can’t go out and just buy the magazine to satisfy my curiosity because I have not yet found a source for English magazines.

Does anyone have any theories?  Did anyone else notice this or read the article?

I’ve got some catching up to do

Oi, things are getting right back to normal around here.  How do I know?  We got our internet hooked up, and now I’m up to my neck in work!  Which is fabulous but I’ve had no time for blogging.  I haven’t had time to finish any of my Weeds recaps (I’ve got 503 half done but that’s about it) and the new travel blog is coming along at a snail’s pace.

I am making huge strides in work though.  I finally stopped being stubborn about learning Adobe Illustrator, and now I’m in love with it.  I don’t know what my problem was, I should have learned it along time ago, but I’ve just been holding onto Photoshop since high school and was too afraid to try something new.  It took only a day to get the hang of it, and now I’m attempting to layout a 35 page help manual for a website all in Illustrator.  It takes me hours just layout one page (I’ll get faster with time) but they’re gorgeous pages, and I’m thrilled.  Now I no longer carry the immortal shame of being a graphic designer who doesn’t know Illustrator.

Adana is still treating us well, but we did have a little psycho-drama with Grandma earlier.  She took his cross necklace from our bedside table while we were sleeping and hid it.  She doesn’t understand why it’s important to him, and thinks she’s doing it for his own good (Muslim country, blah blah blah).  We tore the room apart looking for it, she denied taking it, and even called the police to convince us she was innocent.  Even they could tell it was a bunch of stupid drama.  Right after they left, the cross mysteriously showed up in the hat he was wearing and took off right before the police came to the door.  We just pretended like we didn’t find it and stayed out of the house for the rest of the day.  Total waste of an afternoon, I was so pissed, but I was impressed at how well Hubby kept his cool about it.  Needless to say we are ready to move out of here!

He wants to move to Antalya, on the west coast of Turkey, and after seeing some pictures on Google, I’m all for it.  Check it out:

I think you can see why I didn’t need much convincing!  It’s a total tourist town, and people have been telling us it’s boring in the off season because no one is there, but that sounds more like a selling point to me.  Plus there’ll be lots more English and American people around so I don’t have to be the deaf-mute in all conversations.

I’ll get back to blogging as soon as I catch up on this work, promise.