Summer Movies

My boyfriend (who will henceforth be referred to as Boyfriend) and I love to watch movies. One of the reason we work is because, at our core, we are just two nerds looking for someone who understands.

We watch an astonishingly large number of movies each year. Since our nerd specialties are completely different (his being video games; mine being books) we meet in the middle with the wonderful movies that have been made from both. So you may imagine that summertime might just be our mecca.

Here are some movies that we're really excited to see and their trailers. Enjoy!

1. Captain America: The first Avenger


2. Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon


3. The Hangover 2


4. X-Men: First Class


5. Green Lantern

6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides


8. Thor

9. Fast Five

Addicted to Real life

I watch a lot of reality tv. This is an indisputable fact. Given a choice between a classic old movie and the latest episode (or even a re-run) of the Real Housewives of wherever-is-currently-popular, I will choose the housewives. I can trace this fascination back to the very first reality progam: Survivor. I remember sitting in my aunt's house and watching every episode. "This. Is awesome. I get to watch people do stuff on tv. Regular people like me." The fact that there was a winner and a loser each week just made it even better in my opinion.

Even after Survivor was no longer popular, the spawning of different types of reality shows kept it interesting. After the competition shows came the "follow-me-around-while-I-live-my-life" shows. Finally came the "I'm-really-weird" shows a la Hoarders, Intervention and all those others. And I embraced each new genre with open arms.

Now everyone likes to looks down on these shows and call it a waste and that's fine. But I wonder.... did you watch Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune or StarSearch ? Because the same Survivor, American Idol or America's Next Top Model that you disparage were more than likely based on those family shows that you and your grandparents watched. 

I know that it is ridiculous I should be out there viewing new art shows or going to museums or engaging in some otherwise stimulating cultural activity. But don't act like you aren't secretly watching WEtv Wedding Sundays or the Say Yes to the Dress marathon on TLC.

I'm a well informed, educated woman with a pretty expansive reading list but sometimes I just want to see some dude/lady and their wise-cracking, long suffering assistant navigate life on the "hard" streets of L.A. or watch a crazy lady eat toilet paper (true story from last night's "My Strange Addiction").

Cambridge crazies

Now as you know I live in Somerville but I spend most of my time in and out of work in the illustrious city of Cambridge, home of the largest number of crazy homeless people I have ever seen in my entire life. I realize that every city has its fair share but somehow Cambridge crazies  seem to have the whole thing on lock. After extensive research (aka living my life, riding the T and walking to and from my job) I've encounter a couple different types that I would now like to illustrate here.

1. Crazy that hangs out at the bus stop
        - this genre of crazy person seems to have only one goal in life: bum cigarettes and change off commuters waiting at the bus stop. Now this is a smart move... they have a ready audience of people they can bother. There is one man in particular that waits at my regular morning bus stop that is the prime example of this stereotype. He's always dressed in short-shorts and a puffy jacket and comes up to people to ask for change to call the welfare office. Now usually I would fall for a sob story like that except for one fact that I can't get around... his hair is dyed a different color every 3 days. Now tell me readers.... wouldn't he be better served using his hair-dye money to front his phone calls costs and generally tobacco needs?

2. Crazy riding the T
     - a key component to the T-riding crazy person is volume... its almost like theater, you need to have a great sense of dramatic timing. Their voice rises and falls with the sound of the train, taking each lull in the train's sounds as a cue to start yelling random nonsense at the top of their lungs. The content of their speech is not important, it just has to be nonsensical enough, with enough random curse words thrown in for flavor, to draw your attention away from that really good book you were reading on your kindle/smartphone/ipad device. Luckily for you.. this crazy tends to stay on the T so you can switch cars or just get off at your stop and watch the crazy drive away in the train.

3. Central Square crazies
        - What is so atypical about the Central Square crazy is that they are not really interested in the regular folks out there. They take particular delight in bothering their own people aka other crazies. Any time I go to Central, I always see a fight of sorts break out among the people that hang out there. They politely step around regular folks going about their business but continue to antagonize and upset the one guy they decided to pick on that day. In short, central square crazies are bullies with an ever-changing hierarchical system so the bullied becomes the bully from day to day.


Now despite what you may think, I do not necessarily dislike living among all of these homeless people. I know that they are just misunderstood, misguided or they have not been given the proper care and attention necessary for them to become members of society. For some it is even a conscious choice. But at the end of the day, that is what makes living and working in Cambridge so interesting. You get to know your neighborhood crazies and start to pick up on aspects of their life. And at the very least, they will always give you an interesting story to tell when you reach your destination.

Back after hiatus (approximately a year to be exact)

Well hello readers! I know its been a while since I've posted anything on here but I have to say that 2010 was a crazy year. I'm once more fully committed to writing my random thoughts down and.... guess what? You get to read them. I know... this is better than your daily "need-it-like-crack" morning cup of coffee. This blog also has the added benefit of updating my friends on my life thoughts, especially since I'm often too lazy to pick up the phone and call them. (love you guys :D )

Anyway, look forward to many more regular postings.

Cannonball Read #7: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger

Despite my first impressions, I really enjoyed reading this book. I saw the commercials for the movie adaptation first and I thought it looked like utter drivel. I figured that it would be just as bad as the Notebook was. ( I can say this even though I wept through that entire movie the first time. shhh! )

Anyway, the time traveler, Henry, is a man who uncontrollably travels back in time, but only to places he had already been or already will be. He travels back in time to see his future wife , Claire and meets her first at age 6. In essence, she grows up with a strange man constantly telling her that he is her husband and that they are soulmates. In a world where time travel doesn't exist, this isn't a romantic, wonderful thing, its more like indoctrination. That was , in essence, a big problem that I had with this book, Claire never had a chance to develop and explore other men. She constantly compares all other men to this (literally) unattainable man who keeps popping in and out of her life at random moment.


BUT..... she was in love and so she put up with him disappearing on their wedding day, reappearing bloodied and bruised from wherever he went. If you think about it, he could have been cheating on her with some woman from 1976 and she would never know.
Anyway, theirs was a wonderful and poignant love story. Claire spent most of her life waiting on Henry to show up but in the end she thought that their love was worth it and I supposed love knows no bounds.

Cannonball Read #6: Anna In-Between by Elizabeth Nunez

Growing up I absolutely hated reading Caribbean literature. I guess it as something to do with it being required reading and not something that I did especially for pleasure. But I picked up Anna In-Between when I heard that the author would be appearing at the Boston Book Festival in 2009. I don't know that I expected to enjoy it but I certainly wanted to give it a try. To my pleasure, Anna In-Between was a great read. Anna Sinclair, the main character, left Trinidad to attend college and became a successful editor with a publishing company that specializes in black literature in New York. She and her parents grew up as middle to upper class during the colonial times and were expose to alot of the racism inherent in that era.

This book explores familiar themes such as the relationship between a mother and a daughter and returning home. But it also uses the backdrop of Trinidad from colonial times forward to explain the tensions that exist in this family. The idea of Anna's 'inbetween"-ness existed all the way from childhood. Anna grew up alongside the "English" children but couldn't belong due to the inherent racism of the time and her family coped (as many Trinidadian families in the same situation) by adhering to the ideals set forth as proper by the British strictly.

Upon Anna's return she finds out that her mother has breast cancer but instead of going to the doctor, she has resorted to praying over her rosary in an effort to make the cancer go away. The book tries to reconcile Anna's belief in the power of America over her mother's insistence that Trinidad's ways are just as valid.

Having lived in the US for about 4 years, I can relate to Anna's concern over the seemingly "backwards" or inefficient ways in which some things are done in Trinidad. You have to come to terms with the fact that the culture and way of doing things is quite different from one country to the other. Nunez wove a story that really captured Trinidad cultural contradictions and the love that Trinidadians at home have for their country. She also captured the yearning that all emigrants feel when they leave their home country for another and how things really can never be the same once you leave.

Cannonball Read #5: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

 I know that this has been a long time in coming, but between the holidays and starting a new job I've gotten somewhat sidetracked. All I have to say that I love Carlos Ruiz Zafron. Although his books take me twice as long to read, I think this is just because his imagery is soo complex and so dense that you can get lost in the world. Somehow I just imagine Barcelona in this time as a dark and dank world with occasional burst of brilliant sunshine. That's just me though.

Anyway.... The Angel's Game explored the paths into one lonely writer's mind. The thing that I love about this writer is that you leave the book asking as many questions as when you arrive. Following young writer David Martin through his growth as a writer, we explore Barcelona in the same era as his previous book "The Shadow of the Wind". Zafron writes about writers and books and literature and the exploration of life through the eyes of a reader. The way in which he really addresses this issues of love and happiness are very realistic and at the same time fantastically romantic. Unrequited love is a classic storyline in the novel but I feel that while he addresses it, it is only really exists in order to make his main character's loneliness and (seeming) descent into crazy-dom more poignant.

 The only thing I would say is that while I enjoy books leaving me with questions, this one did not answer perhaps the biggest mystery in the story. I just wish I knew more. But all in all, it is greatness. That's all I can say.