Just a Reminder

As I seem to have lost some 20 feed readers in my move to wordpress.org, I thought I’d just post a nice little reminder over here that I have moved HERE and that my new feed can be found HERE. Thanks! PSA over.

VERY BIG BLOG NEWS

Not many things require all caps, but this definitely does…

I’VE MOVED!

TELL EVERYONE. UPDATE YOUR READERS. CHANGE YOUR LINKS. Oh, and check out my sweet new design. (Thanks, of course, to Jess. Who else?) HORAY!

My Weekend in Provincetown

MOVED!

This weekend, I took a trip to a place that caused me to vow never again to complain about the amount of gay men in the city of Boston, as I had found a placed that trumped it 10 times over. That place is a little beach town on the tip of Cape Cod called Provincetown. It’s adorable, ecclectic, fun, and populated by exactly 5 straight men, most of them married with children. 

I’m not complaining. I had a wonderful time. I just went to more gay clubs this weekend than I have in my entire life up until this point. (My favorite part: the playlists! Artists heard on our first night out included Janet, Paula Abdul, Madonna, the cats of Mamma Mia!, Rhianna, and of course, a Whitney medley!)  I guess I asked for it as I traveled there with four girls and four gay guys. The girls didn’t stand much of a chance. 

We headed out on Friday afternoon, taking the “fast ferry” to Provincetown, which we did not fully appreciate until we doubled our travel time on the way back by taking the “slow ferry.” 

We had a little too much fun jumping on the outer deck to see if we would move backwards on the boat as it moved forward and taking contemplative pictures in the setting sun. When we got into town, we quickly found dinner at a cute little restaurant, where the host offered to store my suitcase while we ate, but not before joking about stealing it and/or selling it to the highest bidder. Ah, small town charm. 

The next day, we walked out of our hotel to find this view while waiting for the shuttle to the beach: 

Needless to say, it was a welcomed change from city life. While at the beach, I managed to get myself into the water and give myself a wicked sunburn. (Damn you, lack of sunscreen! I’m still recovering.) My friends and I also managed to witness FISH MURDER! It started out innocently enough.

Oo, look! Pelicans! Cool! Aw, look at them swimming. Hey, they caught a fish! Nature is so cool. Wait…what is it…ew…ok, that pecking is mildly disturbing. OMG! HIS BEAK IS COVERED IN BLOOD! Did you see that? He just ripped the fish in two…and, wait, what is that bird doing? HE SWALLOWED IT WHOLE! Ah! I HATE NATURE!

Needless to say, I’m scarred for life and will now find the pelicans shounting “Mine!” in Finding Nemo horrifyingly terrifying. I will provide pictures (if anyone actually wants to see them) once my friends upload them onto facebook, but I’m sure the mental image painted above is enough. Despite this unfortunate act of nature, it proved to be a much more positive beach outing than my California beach outing. 

The rest of the weekend is a blur of eating way to much fried food, seeing far too many unattractive shirtless men, listening to endless amounts of dance music, and making a slew of new friends. All in all, it was a wonderful trip out of the city, but I’m always happy to be back in Boston. 

Talking ’bout my Generation

MOVED!

Some (read: none) of you may remember the girl who sat directly in front of me in my political science class last session, who I oh so lovingly wanted to “punch in the face.”  Since I started my new class four weeks ago, I have rarely thought of her, thinking her a thing of the past, that is until she waltz into my new class, not 45 minutes late like I had grown to expect from her, but THREE AND A HALF WEEKS LATE! (Take note: this is only a SIX week class.) She plopped herself down and asked if she had missed anything important, as she was hoping to pick up the class. Well, I wanted to respond, only half the freakin’ class, but you obviously don’t mind too much about that. Everyone (read: the two other people who had shown up that day) assured her she had only missed some reading, and you know most of the discussions, but she would be fine. I said nothing, just silently seethed. Even my professor seemed oddly accomodating, teling her which reading to focus on to catch up, as she obviously couldn’t do all of it. (It’s a pretty reading heavy class.) 

For the next 3 hours of class, she proceeded to raise her hand every 5 to 10 minutes to ask questions that a) she would have known if she had done the reading, b) she would have known if she had been in class the past three weeks or c) had nothing to do with the scope of the class, which she would know if she had glanced at the syllabus. She basically wasted the class time of everyone who had been responsible enough to show up for the past three weeks, acting like we were all there solely to catch her up. 

On Monday, I got to class, and she wasn’t there. This wasn’t all that surprising; however, when halfway through the class, she still hadn’t shown up, I assumed she had dropped the class. I’m not going to lie: I was a little too excited. Today, however, about 30 minutes into class, she showed up again! She, again, hadn’t read all the material required for the day (how could she have?) and again she asked asinine question after asinine question. 

Now as a college student, I am used to dealing with that guy or girl in class. Every class has one: they sit in front. They presume to know more than the professor or like to show off how their life exactly relates to every topic covered in class. Everyone hates them, and everyone knows it. I have, however, never been so offended by that guy or girl as I am by this girl. I find her behavior completely disrespectful, not only to the professor but also to the other students. She is wasting our time and basically saying we are wasting our time by actually coming to class and being prepared. I’m frankly surprised the professor has put up with it.

I also worry that she (and the three other people in my class who come and go so much we wonder every day if they’ve dropped the class) is giving a completely terrible representation of my school, as our professor is visiting form another university AND we have a senior citizen in our class who is auditing through a special program run by the university. Because of this, I find myself over-preparing for class and making sure I am always present and on time, if not early. It’s like I’ve taken it on myself to represent my school well, becuase no one else will. I personally have to make up for their slacking. 

Then I started thinking, I do this for my generation as a whole ALL THE TIME. I overtip so the waiter won’t think young people are cheap. I never get sloppy drunk in public, especially on public transportation, because I don’t want the actual adults to think we are all alcoholics. I keep up on current events so when I interact with adults, I have something interesting and intelligent to say, keeping them from thinking “These young people are so wrapped up in themselves, I doubt they’ve even HEARD of the New York Times.” I’ve done this in internships, in social situations, EVERYWHERE. I’ve somehow appointed myself ambassador for twenty-somethings, at lesat the college aged ones. Everyone else screws up our reputation, and I, for some reason, feel it’s my job to fix it. 

Does anyone else do this? Do you feel constantly embarrassed by your peers? Do you just want to scream at them, “YOU ARE MAKING ME LOOK LIKE A FOOL!”? Because a lot of them really are. 

(Obviously, I’m not saying all college kids are like this. I don’t want people to think I hate everyone. I just don’t appreciate the few who make us all look bad.)

Warning: Intense “Dark Knight” Spoilers ahead

MOVED!

Tonight I finally gave in and joined the masses fandango-ing tickets to see The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked, especially for how good it was, because I also enjoyed a small (which was for some reason larger than my face) diet coke during the 45 minutes of previews.

Thus, about 45 minutes through this lovely 2 hour and 20 minute film, I was in so much pain my leg was shaking. I haven’t had to run to the bathroom this badly since the first time I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I obviously wasn’t going to leave that movie. Every five minutes or so I would analyze my watch then the progression of the plot, trying to use my vast film education to figure out when would be the best point to take a break. Unfortunately this movie NEVER FREAKING LET UP! 

Oh, I could totally leave right…oh, no, the Joker just busted into the cocktail party? Right, I’ll stay for this. Alright, twenty minutes have passed, I’m sure I could sneak out…oh, what’s that, HUGE ASS CAR CHASE! THEY’VE GOT THE JOKER!? What’s going to happen next? Must stay put. So…much…pain… *insert intense leg spasm* Ok, interrogation, I’m sure I could leave for this paaaa…OH MY GOD RACHEL!!!! NOOO!!!! Ok, now for an act break of sorts?…or you know, blowing up a hospital. That works too. 

So, that sure was fun. Also fun was me sprinting from the theater, taking out the eight year olds sitting behind me in the process (to which I ask, who is taking eight year olds to this film that basically scared the crap out of me?) and running to the bathroom only to find one stall was mysteriously locked with no one inside and another had no toilet paper. After waiting for ten minutes, finally running into a bathroom just vacated, and then being told it too had just run out of toilet paper, I cursed the The Dark Knight, and it’s lack of any five minute span of boring screen time. I did finally get into a stall, and let me tell you, it was almost better than the movie. 

Other than that I have only three thoughts about the film that no one else has brought up: 

1) Why does anyone live in Gotham? It seems like a terribly frightening place. I would be getting myself out of there at the first sign of ridiculous craziness. I would NOT be waiting in a bar, watching the city burn, waiting to be forced out by a crazed, clown-faced maniac, who only wants me to get on a boat to test my humanity. I’m out WAY before that. For realsies. What’s wrong with these people?  

2) Why couldn’t Katie Holmes have kept playing Rachel if they were going to kill her? Then I would have been much less sad. I love Maggie Gyllenhaall. 

3) I think I picked the best Batman movie to see first. (Please don’t throw rocks at me. I have watched the George Clooney one. In French. In high school French class. Ok, that probably didn’t help.)

Shame on You, Emmy Voters!

MOVED!

As a Television major, I care a lot about the Emmy’s…probably a little too much. Every year I get my hopes up, thinking they’ll actually recognize the best of the best of television. With so much good stuff on television, despite what most people say, there should be little room for crap. Shouldn’t there? 

Yet every year I am beyond disappointed. Yes, sometimes they get it right, awarding low-rated yet amazing shows like Arrested Development and 30 Rock, but most of the time, they just go with big names and past winners, without, it would appear, even WATCHING half of what’s on television.

If they did watch, they would be EMBARRASSED by leaving off such names as Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton for their work on Friday Night Lights (which itself was left of the list to make room for Boston Legal!? Really, Emmy voters? Does David E. Kelley have naked pictures of all of you? Huge checks made out in your name?) If you watched just one episode of FNL and saw the movingly real and honest performances these two people gave, you would be ASHAMED! Ashamed I tell you!

Equally upsetting on the comedy front, of all the CBS comedies, including my personal favorite How I Met Your Mother (Neil Patrick Harris? Jason Segal? How could this NOT be funny!), and others which (I’ve been told) are consistenly funny, Big Bang Theory and New Adventures of Old Christine, you had to go with Two and a Half Men? REALLY Emmy Voters? Are sex and fart jokes that funny? Am I missing something? Is it just because you nominated them last year so to prove you were right then you have to do it again now? Sadly, it also beat out Weeds! WEEDS! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Charlie Sheen was more interesting than celebrated actress Mary Louise Parker. I must have been mistaken. And you didn’t just give them a nod in the best comedy category, you also had to give them supporting nods as well? Bah! So no room for John Krasinski and Jenna Fisher? No room for Kevin Dillon? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. 

I mean, yes, there are some positives. 30 Rock got a lot of deserved love (as well as every guest star of the season, apparently) as did Pushing Daisies, Dexter, Mad Men, and Lost, but it all just feels like more of the same. Every year the same list gets published and every year I’m disappointed. I won’t even get into past disappointments. (No Lauren Graham? No Kristen Bell? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE WATCHING!?!) I know it will never change no  matter how many times they change the voting rules. There is too much to watch and too few people who care to really try. I know that. And I know I will still watch, because really, what else do I have to do. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be hurling things at the television while I do it. I mean, James Spader!? Really!?

If you want to see the whole list, check it out here. Maybe you can make sense of it all. Also check out my secret online boyfriend Michael Ausiello’s take. See? I’m not alone, I tell you!

Two High School Movies I’m Freakishly Excited About

MOVED!

I will start with the more respectable one: 

American Teen is a documentary that follows five high school students around during their senior year of high school in Indiana. It opens in limited cities (that hopefully include Boston…we’re kind of big and important here, right?) on July 25. It has the very real chance of being the first movie about high school that actually shows SOMETHING that actually happened to ANYONE in high school. I’m totes there. 

Next we have the much bigger, and yes, more shameful, event. Four days after my 22nd birthday (October 24th, to be exact), I will be standing in line surrounded by gaggles of screaming fangirls waiting to buy tickets to the best birthday present ever: HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3!

(I’ll pause a moment to allow half of you to join me in obnoxious excited dancing while the rest of you silently gag.)

Now, for those of you who don’t know me, my love affair with HSM (as those of us cool slash sad enough to talk about High School Musical enough to require a nickname for the movie call it) began with a phone call from my sister freshman year, informing me (who was without Disney Channel. Thanks for nothing free on campus cable.) that she was witnessing the greatest Disney Channel Original Movie event in years. (BEtter than Zenon: The Zequal!? I have to see this!) She thankfully taped it for me, and I first watched High School Musical (the dance-along-version) alongside my big sister, mouth agape at the sheer awful genius of it. I was instantly hooked. The cheesy music. The cheesier dialogue. (“I’m not even behind yet, and you know, I’ve been behind since kindergarden!” Oh Chad, you CRACK ME UP!) Vanessa Hudgens’ never changing baby voice. Lucas Gabreel’s always changing hats. The perfect balance of ridiculous and ridiculously serious moments. I could go on and on.

In the two years since, I’ve directed my own production of the musical (seen one-night only in Chardon, Ohio), and forced my dad to sit through the mildly less genius but still ultimately enjoyable sequal. (“Well, that’s two hours I’ll never get back.” Sorry, Dad.) I’ve become addicted to running to it’s upbeat tunes and have learned most of the dances (for said production, I swear!) 

Just when I thought the HSM franchise could give no more, I was given a glimpse of what genius still lies ahead. Lights dimming to reveal Vanessa and Zac singing soulfully to each other across a crowded gymnasium, lit only by spotlights and their super-reflective shiny hair? Check! Awkward sexual tension between my favorite brother/sister duo, despite one’s blatant homosexuality? Check! A dance in a super manly location to keep the other singing/dancing boys looking cool? Check! The ultimate teen movie staple: the intricately choreographed prom dance? Check! TEN new original songs? Check!

Obviously, I’ve imbedded the trailer that revealed all this and more below. Enjoy at your own risk, as it may induce more excited dancing or gagging. 

So, who is with me? I know my sister definitely is as she’s already predicted, “I see a homemade t-shirt clad movie campout in our future…..”