Last Week in Boston Update

I'm sorry, I'm very behind on blogs. I have lots and lots to write for everyone, just no time to do it!! Soon I'll have time and you'll be inundated. This is my last week at work and my last week living in Boston. Every day, I wake up and think, this is the last Saturday, this is the last Sunday.. Well, today is the last Monday and i'm SO EXCITED!! Some of our stuff has sold, but there is still a lot of furniture left... I keep lowering the price but no one wants couches or book shelves, etc. apparently. If it gets too late, we'll have to do it for free. Eek. I've gone through a good portion of the stuff in my room. The last time I cleaned out most of my stuff was when i moved out of my place in West Roxbury back in summer 2001. I condensed a lot. But it grew. And now i need to condense more... Here at work, I've put up a notice for people to take my pictures I have all over my cube walls. My scooby doo one has gone already. I don't know whether anyone will take the cute model girls. People do always come by and admire my cube though so maybe. After all, it is free. I am never going to get all this work stuff done, and I don't know how it will fare here at work without me. But I'm sure they'll manage. I'm also sure that i'll be getting a few emails and phone calls asking how to do stuff.
Every day is full of lasts now. Last time this happens, last time that happens.. I've never made such a big move before. It's like going away to school (only I didn't travel that far from home) or when I graduated (but still, was in the same familiar place). I can't imagine what the next few months will be like, and that's great!!!

Movie Review: Underworld: Evolution

I saw Underworld: Evolution last night. I thought the first movie was only ok, but i liked that one a thousand times better than this. For one thing, the whole movie is dark. Physically dark. Also, it's just BORING. I LOVE vampires, i love watching, reading, etc vampire stuff. But this just somehow makes it into this long drivel thing. For those of you who don't know the plot, in this sequel, the main vampire girl and the hybrid vampire/werewolf guy are trying to tie up the strings from the last movie. We learn more about the history of vampires and werewolves, and there is fighting. There really wasn't much of a point to the movie... I guess if you saw the first one, you'd want to see the second one to see what happens, but it's nothing monumental. It seemed like this went on FOREVER and i even forgot to watch the last few minutes.

Movie Review: The Matador

The matador came out recently, but i didnt see much hype about it. i wasn't even sure what it was about when i started watching it. It's about two guys who meet in mexico and become friends. One is an aging assasin, and the other is a businessman. The assasin is a little crazy, and suffering from stress, but can't quit in his line of work. There's also this whole analogy to the bull fight they see together. This movie was pretty boring, nothing much happened. It took two sittings to watch it, and i still couldn't pay attention. I'm not even sure what happened near the end. The one nice thing about it is that the focus is on friendship instead of romance, the way that most movies are. I'd imagine that it's very hard for assasins to make friends. Still, don't bother watching this.

Restaurant Review: Apsara Palace

Saturday i went to Apsara Palace in Providence RI. This restaurant serves a variety of different types of asian foods. I had a green tofu curry, which was very good, and cheap, only about $6. The portion size was ok, but since it was mostly green beans and such, it wasn't very filling. I took home just a little bit for a doggy bag, and that's only because I ordered rice. My friends meals, on the other hand, were enormous. They paid twice as much, but got twice as much food as well, so I guess that's a good deal. One was a fish dish which also went with rice, and another was a fish noodle dish. At least one of these, if not both, were off of the specials board. Hot tea came with the meal, and I also ordered thai iced tea, which was good, but not the best i've had. The decor is very plain, and the place is small, so I've been told it's often hard to get seats. Apparently, you can also bring in your own alcohol, as I saw people with six packs of beer at the other tables. I would say that this is a tasty restaurant, with good value, although I like the other similar restaurant across the street better.

T Dance

Last night, I was supposed to go see Tony Moran at T dance. I was pretty tired from the weekend (see further blogs I have yet to write), but still wanted to see him while he was here. Unfortunately, we got there, and he had CANCELLED!! Matt and Frank had already paid before anyone noticed this, so we decided to stay. It was Dj Escape, who I usually like, though sometimes he's a lot better than others. I used to go to t dance every sunday years ago. It starts at 7 and ends early by 11, so that people can go out and get to bed in time to wake up in the morning. It used to be really fun, then it got kind of dead, and I stopped going. They have since renovated the old vapor into the new(ish) rumor, but apparently they still do have t dances. I think that this event wasn't well advertised, or else everyone else just decided not to go because of the change in dj, because there wasn't much energy there. It did get more crowded by the time we left at 10, but everyone there was old. We were some of the youngest people there, at least half seemed to be 50 or above, and out of the rest, most people were at least in their 30s. Maybe not, but that was my perception. Lots of white and gray heads. Not that that's bad, and I guess that it makes sense, they don't want to stay out late. There was one gray haired lady who seemed a bit addled. She was trying to dance with a pole. I wanted to take a movie of a grey haired slightly hunched woman at a club dancing with an inanimate object but it seemed rude. Though I doubt she would have noticed. A lot of the music was kind of old, and they played something scary, i think it was it's raining men. That's when we left. They had the avalon dancers there, doing their go-go before they had to be at the other club. Two of the three were apparently straight, or maybe bi, because they singled me out as about the only female in the club (or the only one without grey hair that is) and were all over me. One was dancing, and he had flourescent green tiny underwear. Who wears that? His friend, who was on a break, made me tip him, then danced with me, a little too overeagerly. He was starting to annoy and bore me actually, when he finally had to get back to work for his last set. He was going to avalon after, but i told him i was not. All of those go go dancer/stripper guys always act like they're gods gift to the world and anyone would be so honored that they hit on you. That is not a nice attitude to have. I actually think those ultra muscle dancers are funny, not really sexy. So, my last t dance, and my last time at Rumor. I won't miss it.

Movie Review: When a Stranger Calls

A bit ago I saw When a stranger calls. I'm not sure why i saw it, since the previews looked so bad. The previews were right, it WAS really bad. You've all seen the commercials - the girl is babysitting, someone keeps calling, they turn out to be in the house and after her and the kids. I never felt for any of the characters, the storyline was bad, the acting was bad, the ending was bad, everything was bad. The best part was the very very very end, and i wasn't even sorry that happened. I guess that this is a remake, and the original was very popular, but i never even heaard of it before the remake... Anyways, don't see this movie.

Boston Gay Pride 2006

This past weekend was Boston's gay pride weekend, and it was my favorite one so far. Well, it was only my third... last year's was pretty fun too but this year i actually made it to most of the things! Just knowing that i'm going to be leaving in a couple of weeks and it's most likely the LAST time i'm going to be places makes everything even more exciting!
For me, pride started Saturday morning. It was raining. It had been raining for days and days and days. The pride parade was supposed to start at noon, but it got postponed an hour because of the rain. It didn't really matter, because it was still raining at 1. My friends and i are VERY SLOW. Even though i woke up at 10 and got them out of bed at 11 (Jay was sleeping over), we still didn't leave till almost one. So, we missed a pre-parade gathering. We were also starving. Still, Jesse, Jay and I managed to get to the parade and meet up with everyone when it was only part way over. Those parade people still walked in the rain, some of them had umbrellas, some just ignored it. Some were barely wearing anything and must have been absolutely freezing. It really wasn't that cold, but the wet makes you chillier. It was fun, and we got lots of candy and chapstick and beads thrown on our heads. Afterwards, we went to Frank's house to dry off a bit. From there, all of us went to tom's house for a bbq. Actually, everyone stayed inside, since it was still raining, but we ate the steak when it came down to us. It must have looked funny to see a bunch of us all entranced with watching a baby playing with a dog, both of them running around in circles. I'm very easily entertained sometimes... Being the pigs that we are, the grilled veggies and steak weren't enough food for us, so we headed home to make dinner. On the way, we walked past the Saturday block party, but it was just too wet to dance outside. Jesse and i had just enough time to eat our chicken and couscous, before matt met us back at the house and we had to get ready for the night. Jesse, Matt, Jay and I left for Ryan's house. As usual, we were running late, so we only got to stay there for a few minutes. We actually got to Machine really early, because there was supposed to be a line, and i did hear there was, later on. Junior Vasquez was dj'ing. He was ok. The bad thing about pride, is that everyone has to play old, gay, songs. It's not as spiritful if people play new songs (even though those sound better). So, he played old, gay songs on top of new sounding beats, which did work kind of well. Listening to 'I'm Every Woman' was pretty grating though, especially since the majority of people in the club were guys. I was absolutely dying of hot. The dancefloor was so packed that I could hardly breathe from being so hot and was drinking so much water. I had to keep taking breaks, hanging out with Desiree on the stage. After the club, some of us went back to Tom's house again, but it got late, and we went home to get some rest. I only ended up getting a couple hrs of sleep, because I'm bad at sleeping and dancing for a long time makes me hyper. In the morning, it took us a bit to get moving, and we were late for the block party and missed Jenna Drey performing. That's sad, I like her. Instead, we saw some weirdo girl named Kristy K or something. She looked so gross and fake, and was wearing a dress that did not fit her at all. It had some weird opening at her stomach that kept gaping. She sang pretty badly, a couple of songs i had never heard of. Then she starts hey crowd, do you ever touch yourself? Well, i do! Then some twin guys come out and do backup dancing as Kristy sings I touch myself. That's not a great song to begin with, but her singing it, interupting to say how much she loves boston (her first time here) how excited she is to be dancing with twins, and begging some guy for a beer, was even worse. Bill was very enthusiastic about her performance, but no one else was. The dj at the block party was Tracy Young (madonna's official dj). Female djs are rare, so it was good that we had one. She was very happy, dancing all around on her platform. Of course, we had a million madonna mixes, since she really was obligated to, but she didn't play her new Paris hilton song remix (or at least not when we were there). Most people weren't really dancing, just standing around, but it was crowded. We left after a couple of hours and went to Bill's house for a bbq. I hadn't eaten hamburgers in a long while! We rushed home, because we were late for our next event. I quickly changed, we met Laura, and headed off to Ryan's house again. By now, i was getting pretty tired, but i was still happy to go to the last event, Chris cox at avalon. I had seen him over a year ago in providence, and he was only ok, since he made his music all happyish for the venue. I like some of his songs on my ipod, especially the new dub Jason Walker one, so i wanted to try him out again. Well, it was still pride, so he had to play prideish songs, but the background was harder than the last time. He didn't really play many new things (although he played S.O.S. twice, bringing the times i heard that song last weekend to a grand total of a million and one), so that was sad. In fact, the last song he played was We Are Family. O! I felt like i was in the movie birdcage! Jesse wouldn't even dance! It was really funny, because the night before people were making fun of the music at machine and saying at least he didn't play we are family, and then there it is. I had so much fun, seeing as that might be my last time at avalon, where i've spent many, many nights dancing away.
After the club, Jesse, Matt and I walked home, our legs already hurting us from all the use we got out of them this weekend, and i just felt really happy. Happy that i had such a fun time, happy that there are still nice people in boston (although the majority of us are moving in the next couple months out of state), and really excited to see all the new fun times there will be in San Francisco. Not every weekend has to be as packed with things to do, but - what if they were? What if i could live life flitting from thing to thing, and always having a great time. Hmm, it might wear on me after a while. Oh well, for now, i have another fun-filled weekend coming up ahead of me. YAY!! For more pics, go to my flickr account.

Movie Review: Spun

I am behind on my movie reviews! I recently saw the movie Spun. You may not have heard of it, I believe it is independent, and apparently it's from 2002 even though i just learned of it recently.. The main character is Brittney Murphey, and the girl from American Pie is in it too. It's about a bunch of crystal addicts. These people are really messed up (as you would expect, if you never slept for a week, and did drugs constantly), but at the same time, it was pretty interesting. They basically just go about their lives, trying to make and take drugs, and the other incidental things that happen. It really makes you not want to not become a drug addict, so if you were thinking of that, watch this. Even if you weren't thinking of it, watch it anyway. From the trippy, weird cartoons, to the freakish things the people do, it keeps your attention.

My frappr was possessed

Just about every time i tried to log in to my frappr account, it swtiched me over almost immediately to some games ad page. This even happened sometimes when i went onto my map from someone else's account. So, I've opened a new frappr account instead. It is www.frappr.com/merrijl. Please join that friends map instead!

Girly time- H.I.P Makeup

I'm not the girliest of girls, but i never leave my house without putting on makeup. Not even to go across the street to the convenience store to buy some water or something. It's not that i'm ugly and need to cover all that up, but i think that makeup accents you and makes you look cute. And i do like to look presentable (except for times like now, when i'm sitting here damp and freezing at work from this weather). At the same time, i can't afford to pay a lot for my makeup. so... i am reviewing my recent find of the h.i.p. line of makeup. it's made by l'oreal, so it's in the drugstore, and is very decently priced... but it has nice, vibrant colors, so it reminds me of MAC. the h.i.p. stands for high impact pigment, and all of the products do seem very pigmenty. i love eye makeup, but it seems like most of the drugstore eye shadows just blend in too much. here you see a lot of colors, and you can make a whole peacock pallete on your eyes. i also have a couple lip glosses, which stay on well, without being either too sticky, or drying. i have not tried the lipsticks, or the blushes, but my bronzer works well. the other good thing about these is each, even the eyeshadow duos, comes with a mirror and brushes/wands. i highly reccomend trying one of these and adding them to your makup kit.

Why are people so hateful and stupid??!!??

My mother emailed me this story. You can go and read it, but what it basically says is that we had a display up in the macy's window here in boston. It showed the schedule for gay pride this week (parade, parties, etc) and some manequins wearing some gay rainbow flags around their waists. One of the stupid, hateful groups, MassResistance, has pressured Macy's to take it down. They finally succeeeded in getting them to take the manequins away, but Macy's left the schedule. It's a schedule. Now the group says that's not enough and they need to do more. On the page of the article, it asks readers whether they think that was a good compromise, whether macy's should have kept everything up, or whether they should have taken everything down. Of course, the most of the readers said they should have taken everything down. UGGGH things like this make me mad. Who on earth could complain about fake people wearing rainbows? Or a piece of paper or something showing some fun events to do around the city? How is that offensive to them? How is that bothering them? I think it's great that Macy's did that and i wish they had not bowed down to that hateful group. What could they have done to Macys anyways? Ugh people like this make me sick. I was just reading their site and their blog and it makes me furious. And i see they have the same template as me! So you'll be seeing my blog template changing in the next few days...

Beacon Hill Art Walk

Beacon Hill had a free art walk on Sunday. I was expecting to get to go into people's houses, which was the main lure, to see how they were decorated and such. I didn't get through all of the locations, which were scattered all over our neighborhood, but I did get to a lot of them. They were in cute little gardens or alleyways, behind the houses. It was unfortunately raining by the time i got to go, so many of the people either had plastic over their work, or they decided to pack up early, and the musicians weren't even playing. I was still able to see a lot of it. It was spilt really into two categories. One category was the more mainstream art. This is the stuff you see everywhere - for sale on the walls at restaurants, on the walls of your bland hotel room, in waiting rooms, in generic mall art stores, etc. I wasn't thinking i'd see any of that sort, but in retrospect, it makes sense, since a lot of beacon hill is made up with that type of people. That's not bad or anything...
The other half of the art was very good. There was some nice abstract art, as well as sculpture and some interesting photography. Matt ended up insulting the whole concept of photography art right in front of the artist, who he didn't know was standing behind him. We know she heard because she answered me when i tried to defend her. I knew she was there. :)
I think this is a great idea and i'm sorry i never noticed this the last 2 junes i was living here. it's too bad it was such a bad day for it, but that's new england weather... i've always liked art and looking at local artists gives you a better spread of what's out there, so i intend to do a lot more of this once i get to CA, as well as maybe some art of my own to decorate my room.

Uberzone at Phoenix Landing

I've already ranted before about the stupid music divide. Out of the few people left (over here on the east coast at least) who like dance music, gay guys have claimed tribal house, and then straight guys plus all girls (although lesbian girls don't seem to usually like dance music at all) are stuck with the more out there techno music. I, of course, was born in the wrong body or something, because I can't like the correct music. It's not even that i need words as much as i need a beat and an actual structure or melody. I can't explain it. Out of the so-called straight music though, breaks is probably one of the best kinds, in my mind, mainly because it has the strong beat i like.
Last Wednesday, Laura, Rob and I went to Uberzone at the phoenix landing in central square. I had been there only twice before, both years ago. The first time, i went with my then-boyfriend. It was the usual hip hop/top 40 music, and what i remember is that all the girls were dressed very ugly and so bostony, and wearing sweaters, and also that some guy grabbed my butt right when i was standing with my boyfriend which i thought was rude. I remember it being the essence of a typical 'white' bar. The same with the second time, only this time, they wouldn't let my friend in because he was too gay. So we didn't go. Now, it appears that it has turned a new leaf, or at least on Wednesday nights. Wednesday is breaks night, and i like this place much better this way.
We started out with sets from a few different breaks djs (one was even a girl!) although i don't know their names. I liked the music. It's a small place, and at the beginning, it was like a school dance sort of setting, people standing around and talking, but no one dancing. Then there were a couple of guys who started in. These guys were REALLY into their music. I had to step back so i wasn't hit. It was so fun to watch. Around 12, the main people, Uberzone came on. It's hard to describe their music, but you can hear it at www.uberzone.net. They did a great job, even playing the drums live, but I have to say I preferred the original breaks people. It was just too deconstructed for me. I always think, with all of these types of music, how do the djs remember whether they've made these songs before? How do they name them, and how can you tell when you've gone from one song to another? They all sort of blend together and sound pretty similar. I know, I'm sure that people who don't listen to the genre at all say the same thing about my type of music, but I still don't get it. Still, by the time they came on, everyone was dancing, and the three of us had so much fun dancing and making fun of people. We also got to see a guy outside get in trouble for peeing on the outside of the building while all the clubs were still open, which was funny. It was a very good time, and good music, even if it wasn't exactly to my tastes.

Movie Review: X Men 3 The Last Stand

I saw XMen the other night, and i figured i should write this review before i hear too much about it from other people to influence my opinion. I think it was a pretty good movie, it held my attention the whole way through, but it was also bad in a lot of ways. Of course, the usual the movie is not as good as the book applies here, but i guess fortunately, i never read the comics. I did watch the original xmen cartoon series all the way through, which was pretty accurate to the comics i've been told. so, it was a little confusing the way they messed things up in the movie. there were a lot of things that were wrong. even little things like juggernaut being effected by the cure even though he's not technically a mutant. and of course the main bigger things of some people (like rogue, my favorite character) being kids. i'm hoping gambit will be on the next movie, i missed him. i actually don't know how they'll make the next one, they messed things up too badly to be able to continue the story line... but i guess we'll see... watching the x-men always makes me wish i were a mutant. i want to be able to fly or read minds or move things with my mind... it's so great. i would never take the cure. there's also the political part of this movie. people always say that the mutants are really gay, and i can see that. everything directly relates, just turn on the news to hear what laws they're making. it's interesting that a series like this would be so popular now. but even if you take it at face value, i wonder if in the future mutants like this will exist..
right after the first movie, they made a new xmen cartoon, xmen generations. it's more kiddier, and a lot of the characters are kids in that series too. i've just started watching it and once again, it's not as good. maybe i'll have to find the real storyline from the comics, made into a book, because i really do love the xmen lately...

May Books

a man of honor the autobiography of joseph bonanno - Joseph was the head of one of the biggest mafia families in NYC. He was the one that they modelled the godfather after. This book was pretty interesting, especially since I like sopranos. This showed more of the beginnings of what they do on the show, and helped me understand it better. Even the part about the necklace on the saint, which was on the new season show, was in the book. I only got through half of the book, because it started to get a bit boring. But I'm sure that people with more attention span would enjoy it.

in pursuit of the proper sinner by elizabeth george - i have to admit, there is only so much elizabeth george i can read at a time. I couldn't finish this one... A young woman goes out hiking and ends up murdered, along with an artist from London. I was really shocked at the way that Lynley acted towards Havers, she had to do what she did in the last book to save the girl. I can't believe he would hold that against her. Unfortunately, these books are just too long and dense and I'd read too many too close together to be able to finish.

hope of the earth by piers anthony - this is the third book in the geodyssey saga, although you can read it all by itself. I read the first two when i was 16, so i was really happy to come across the next volume. these books follow a set of people as they live their lives, but through a time spanning from the beginning of humans till the near future. In all of this time, these characters only age probably 10 yrs or so. Like the others, it was really really interesting, and i zoomed through the book. I love learnng about the history and anthropology of the people through 'real' stories. Definitely check these books out, theyre some of my favorites ever!

savage girls and wild boys a history of feral children by michael newton - this is a nonfiction book talking about children who were raised in the wild, by animals. this would have been an interesting subject, but the language he uses to write with is very pompous and unneccessarily big worded. i felt like i was reading something for a class instead of for fun, and it seemed like the author doesn't really even know much about the subject. so, i stopped reading it pretty soon into the book. skip this one, there's better books to discuss this, i'm sure.

appetite for life the biography of julia child by noel riley fitch - somewhere, i heard this was good. i started reading the very beginning. i was inspired to learn that julia never even went to cooking school until she was 47 or something like that. and that she never even met the love of her life till she was in her 30s. so, if nothing else, it teaches us that life can begin at any age. the way it was written wasn't storylike enough for me. it didn't flow. so i stopped reading it.

i hate you, don't leave me by jerold j kreisman md and hal straus - sometimes i get random books off the list, and this was one. surprisingly, i really liked this book, because it helped me understand two people i'd been close with before in my life (but no longer am). this shows the threats of suicide, the rages, the dr jeckyl and mr hydeness of a borderline person. i already knew that how they were wasnt my fault, but now that's confirmed. i'm gonna try to not associate with people like that again, although i really hope anyone who has this gets help, becuase it's not their fault either. this is a quick read with lots of interesting case studies that may help you understand some difficult, self hurting people.

head games by mariah fredericks - in this book, a girl buries herself in a computer game after losing her best friend and other big events in her life. she progesses to a real life fantasy game (like the ones my brother and sister used to play when we were little), and eventually has to figure out her life. it was good seeing her going from living in a fantasty world to living in her own self.

sleeping beauty by donna kauffman - this was such a predictible, gaggably gooshy book. it was ok for a quick read, but so saccharine that i could barely finish it. it's about a nerdy woman who gets remade over, inside and out, to impress her high school crush. her 2 best friends are moody, as is she. in the end she finally realizes she was supposed to be with her best friend, which everyone else could tell on page 2.

doctor illuminatus by martin booth - a family moves into a historic preserve estate in england, and the two children discover a boy who is from the 14th century, or thereabouts. the three of them work together to fight the evil guy who is from the same time. this is going to be a series, and this is the first one. it was ok. no one was really all that likeable, and the story didn't go in depth enough. pretty good, but not great.

slowness by milan kundera - i don't know what this was, it was way too boring to get past the beginnng of the third chapter. i realize it was translated from french, but the language was so fancy and weird... this was worse than something you'd be forced to read at school. SKIP!

the unbearable lightness of being by milan kundera - this is by the same horrible author. this time i got up to the 6th chapter. it was something about a guy who marries a woman after meeting her twice. this says it's an international bestseller, and im sure it is, but i cant' read this sort of pretentious stuff.