Thank you, Heather, for watching so we don't have to. Though perhaps a "best of" clips show would be hilarious.

As for high school, I was happy to get out, and have never once looked back. It's not that I hated every one and every moment there, but I had better things to do with my time. Most every one in my graduating class say high school as The! Best! Years! Of! Our! Lives! Me, I preferred David Hwang's view expressed in "M. Butterfly": "There is no greater guarentee for failure in life than happiness in high school."

"Remarkable, isn't it, how unattractive petty squabbles look among the aged? Something to ponder as you become less and less pretty and sweet-smelling and worthy of love by the second."

For lines like that--lines that make me laugh and sob with pathetic recognition at the same time--Heather deserves a raise.

I haven't watched "Gross Pointe Blank" in a while. Will watch with gusto this evening.

They showed that there was no need to wish for the pig's blood and telekinesis of Carrie; they could achieve the same result with pipe bombs and readily available firearms.

Just this week a school near me had something close to a Columbine Solution incident; three students developed ingenious plans to blockade the cafeteria at DeLand Middle School (Florida) and kill everyone inside. The only problem was that the students stupidly gossiped about it through instant messaging. One of them said, "Everyone will pay for what they did to me...They will all die along with me...I will kill every person I see … The massacre will happen soon." Not surprisingly in this breakthru year of a female Presidential candidate, one of the arrested students was a girl. When asked in court whether she was troubled about consequences, she coolly said "Not if I'm dead."

I'm sure the nonsense about class reunions and cute TV shows are all a lot of fun, not just for people like Havrilesky, but for creative people - the folks behind High School Confidential and movies like Elephant and Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore used the Columbine incident to promote his gun-violence agenda, and just like everyone else, ignored the real cause for Columbine; that Harris and Klebold were bullied, and that neither teachers, psychiatrists or parents gave a damn for them as people.

That is the reality of high school, not gym dances and cheerleading. As long as everyone pretends that high school is just an awkward phase, and that the sadistic nature of teenagers is just faux drama, we can look forward to more wonderful entertainments like the one that nearly happened in DeLand.

Don't get me wrong - I have no desire to rehash my highschool career of 24 years ago ,but it seems to me , through all the whining about Highschool shows , someone harbors resentment about their highschool years.

'me thinks thou protests too much'

... "Cold Case Files." Something to do with high school cheerleaders killing each other or at the very least they are playing on the same emotional brain functions.

"but it seems to me , through all the whining about Highschool shows , someone harbors resentment about their highschool years...'me thinks thou [doth] protest too much'..."

High school, for me, was an unending nightmare punctuated by a couple of decent experiences. I have kept in "sort of touch" with exactly two people. No doubt some of it was that I attended 4 high schools in 5 years across three continents. But new kids got along just fine in all of those schools - just not me. If I was lucky, I was ignored. If I was not, I was invited to participate in "in crowd" events only to discover I was the butt of the joke all along - or worse. I was smart (despite a streak of optimism that I think just died a tiny shrieking death sometime last week), and loved school, and that was the kiss of death right there - unless someone needed to copy off me for an exam.

20 years later, in a professional environment where I excel, and where everyone respects me and where I have made several good friends and many fun acquaintances, there was an incident just about a year ago that reminded me of my "rightful" place in high school. I found myself unable to breath, curled into a little ball on my sofa at home and crying for four days. Mostly I could not believe I was reduced to such a pile of blubber by something that echoed something that happened over two decades earlier. The only thought in my brain was "How can I be back here, again?!!"

My point is that some of us get scarred pretty deeply. that the only people who can feel even remote nostalgia for those who might throw spoiled eggs and rotten tomatoes at them are the ones who only watched as these delightful items were thrown at others. And that whining about high school shows is the least one can do. One can also heave at the notion and change the channel.

In other words, it was not a prank. You can look it up on the Internet (search terms:DeLand Florida middle school arrest) if you aren't too scared to confront reality. I'm assuming that your high school career went just fine, that you had plenty of money, sex and personal confidence. If you had been in DeLand at the school where these kids were, and if they hadn't been stopped, you'd be the first target of opportunity.

It's true that people like school administrators, teachers and parents can panic at the slightest thing. Seeing a lifeless kid lying in a hallway, who was once someone's hope for the future, can make one a little overcautious. Not out of concern for the kids, of course; they are concerned about how a massacre may affect their status with their friends and future employers.

There is a big investment in believing that teenagers still live in an Ozzie and Harriet environment, with the slight changes of shorter skirts and non-white kids. They don't. They never did. And blissful parents and people like you, Gonzo, sleep peacefully in your Bushian ignorance...until the SWAT teams arrive and your kid is stuffed into a drawer in the morgue.