I watched this with my sister my senior year of college. It's a pretty appropriate coming-of-age movie. This song is so wonderfully 80s, but I love it anyway. Not to mention, the movie is shot at Maryland because Georgetown's campus is not nearly as awesome :) Go Terps!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
In the era of Windows 98 and when AOL was somewhat respected
Let's just say that between all the recent deaths in my high school graduating class, reconnecting with old friends, and finally having a few moments to myself, I have been extremely nostalgic recently. And coincidentally, my dad wants to give his old computer away, and I came across my old email filing cabinet while sifting through the hard drive. It was like discovering a dusty album under your bed. Talk about a trip down memory lane.
Lo and behold: emails since *gasp* 1999!
I can give you a summary of what I had saved in that filing cabinet:
1)I met an awesome chick in high school, where we exchanged many angsty emails over the summer ranting about people at school, our parents, life in general, and her ultimate move to Spain. She had her problems back then, but she was able to trust me and confide in me about the most intimate things. We continued to keep in touch, and sometimes she would write that she really missed me. I missed her a lot too. We have come a long way since that summer.
2)I was just getting into music, and was involved with various listservs. For example, I used to be a ridiculously obsessed with the Goo Goo Dolls, and must have deleted some 50 emails containing interview transcripts, concert anecdotes, and other random interactions with fellow Goo fans. It's a shame they suck now.
I also loved The Replacements ever since my favorite high school English teacher introduced me to them. "The 'Mats" as they were abbreviated. The dude who headed up the 'Mats listserv used to organize a "tape/CD trade" every Christmas. If you signed up for it, you had to made a mix CD for someone random on the listserv, and they reciprocated. It was a really cheap and thoughtful way to find random music. One year I did it, I got 2 Replacements CDs, which was awesome. And the other year, the person I was paired with totally snubbed me and didn't sent me anything. I'm still waiting, you asshole! Haha.
Speaking of the Replacements, they had some great songs as well: Left of the Dial, Can't Hardly Wait, Birthday Girl...Paul Westerberg did some solo stuff too but I can't remember titles right now. Another group I gotta pull out of the vault.
3)Forwards were such a big deal. So many funny jokes, bumper stickers, silly surveys, whatever amused us at the moment. I don't really get many forwards anymore, thankfully...I don't think I'd ever leave the computer
4)Boys, boys, boys...so many of them at the time :-P In that filing cabinet I found emails from 3 boys I've kissed, 2 boys who officially asked me out, and 1 who I am still involved with now!
Everything in that filing cabinet will be deleted tomorrow since I'll be too lazy to wake up and figure out how to print and archive it before my dad takes the computer to my uncle, who will delete it permanently.
One side of me wants to save and print everything out, to savor every moment like that tourist who takes a million pictures of the damn landmark from 50 different angles. I want 50 different angles of my life to reflect upon. Plus, like my parents, I am a packrat and I feel like I'm being gutted whenever I have to dispose of anything.
But another part of me sees those emails as conversations: passing dialogues that we all naturally forget about with time. The more practical (and physically exhausted) side of me is saying....Jess, get some sleep and lay those memories to rest. You have lots more time to accumulate even more memories, and hopefully this time they will be significant enough that you won't wait 8 years to look back at them.
Lo and behold: emails since *gasp* 1999!
I can give you a summary of what I had saved in that filing cabinet:
1)I met an awesome chick in high school, where we exchanged many angsty emails over the summer ranting about people at school, our parents, life in general, and her ultimate move to Spain. She had her problems back then, but she was able to trust me and confide in me about the most intimate things. We continued to keep in touch, and sometimes she would write that she really missed me. I missed her a lot too. We have come a long way since that summer.
2)I was just getting into music, and was involved with various listservs. For example, I used to be a ridiculously obsessed with the Goo Goo Dolls, and must have deleted some 50 emails containing interview transcripts, concert anecdotes, and other random interactions with fellow Goo fans. It's a shame they suck now.
I also loved The Replacements ever since my favorite high school English teacher introduced me to them. "The 'Mats" as they were abbreviated. The dude who headed up the 'Mats listserv used to organize a "tape/CD trade" every Christmas. If you signed up for it, you had to made a mix CD for someone random on the listserv, and they reciprocated. It was a really cheap and thoughtful way to find random music. One year I did it, I got 2 Replacements CDs, which was awesome. And the other year, the person I was paired with totally snubbed me and didn't sent me anything. I'm still waiting, you asshole! Haha.
Speaking of the Replacements, they had some great songs as well: Left of the Dial, Can't Hardly Wait, Birthday Girl...Paul Westerberg did some solo stuff too but I can't remember titles right now. Another group I gotta pull out of the vault.
3)Forwards were such a big deal. So many funny jokes, bumper stickers, silly surveys, whatever amused us at the moment. I don't really get many forwards anymore, thankfully...I don't think I'd ever leave the computer
4)Boys, boys, boys...so many of them at the time :-P In that filing cabinet I found emails from 3 boys I've kissed, 2 boys who officially asked me out, and 1 who I am still involved with now!
Everything in that filing cabinet will be deleted tomorrow since I'll be too lazy to wake up and figure out how to print and archive it before my dad takes the computer to my uncle, who will delete it permanently.
One side of me wants to save and print everything out, to savor every moment like that tourist who takes a million pictures of the damn landmark from 50 different angles. I want 50 different angles of my life to reflect upon. Plus, like my parents, I am a packrat and I feel like I'm being gutted whenever I have to dispose of anything.
But another part of me sees those emails as conversations: passing dialogues that we all naturally forget about with time. The more practical (and physically exhausted) side of me is saying....Jess, get some sleep and lay those memories to rest. You have lots more time to accumulate even more memories, and hopefully this time they will be significant enough that you won't wait 8 years to look back at them.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Regina Spektor - Real Love (Lennon cover live at Ram's Head)
I just saw Regina again last night at Rams Head in Baltimore. Last time I saw her at 9:30 Club with a band and she was on keyboard. This time she was solo with a grand piano. Both concerts were awesome and different, but this time I knew her songs a lot better. Her rendition of "Us," "Field Below," and the John Lennon cover "Real Love" moved me to tears. Plus her acoustic "Hotel Song" duet with Only Son beatboxing was impressive (see below).
I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in the car over the past year listening to the Regina mix CD I made. Andy's listened to it so many times he'd internalized the songs to the point where he couldn't tell them apart until a few seconds into the song. I'm so happy to have discovered her at her creative peak.
Regina Spektor - Field Below (live at Ram's Head)
This is the actual concert I was at. Sorry for all the Regina posts, but this is my blog and I shall do what I please :)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Worst American movies of Summer 2007
Courtesy of the Washington Post: Critics Everywhere Agree: These Were the Stinkers of Summer
If I were an angrier, snobbier, and more eloquent person, I would have absolutely written movie reviews for a living.
It is true, this past summer was full of shitty movies...especially sequels and trequels!
Anyway, I thought this article was hilarious, relaying the top 10 worst movies of the summer according to Rotten Tomatoes. I especially liked one critic's description of some bad Lindsay Lohan horror flick as "torture porn." I mean really, that IS the epitome of what those stupid teen slasher movies entail.
Or how about on the movie B.R.A.T.Z: "This movie is SO BAD! I can't believe I just spent an hour and a half of my life, like, watching it, when I could have been totally trying on hairbands instead!"
What's funnier, that the movie was so bad or that some 50-year-old male film critic was trying to emulate the personality of a teenybopper? "Trying on hairbands" ?? What the hell does that even mean?
In other news, I am officially on Netflix. Let the sedentary movie-addict lifestyle begin!
If I were an angrier, snobbier, and more eloquent person, I would have absolutely written movie reviews for a living.
It is true, this past summer was full of shitty movies...especially sequels and trequels!
Anyway, I thought this article was hilarious, relaying the top 10 worst movies of the summer according to Rotten Tomatoes. I especially liked one critic's description of some bad Lindsay Lohan horror flick as "torture porn." I mean really, that IS the epitome of what those stupid teen slasher movies entail.
Or how about on the movie B.R.A.T.Z: "This movie is SO BAD! I can't believe I just spent an hour and a half of my life, like, watching it, when I could have been totally trying on hairbands instead!"
What's funnier, that the movie was so bad or that some 50-year-old male film critic was trying to emulate the personality of a teenybopper? "Trying on hairbands" ?? What the hell does that even mean?
In other news, I am officially on Netflix. Let the sedentary movie-addict lifestyle begin!
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