Weekend Report

Friday- I went over Kim and Mike’s and we ate Papa Ginos and rented a movie. A very bad movie: My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Do yourself a favor and don’t ever watch it. The pizza was good, though, and Kim gave me two bagfuls of shoes that don’t fit her anymore, so the evening did have some high points.

Saturday- Worked, played soccer, and entertained visitors. My friend Colann and her boyfriend Dave came up from Rhode Island for the night. We decided to stay local and had dinner at Café Porto Bello, a little piece of the North End right in Southie! When I queried my guests about their preferences for after dinner drinks, they enthusiastically opted for the “dive bar” category, so we went to the Quencher Tavern. If you picture a narrow sidestreet full of residential triple deckers, and the first floor of one of them has been converted into a bar, with a Tom Brady mural painted on what would normally be the living room window, and it's full of friendly drunk people, with a heavy dose of dirty old man, then you can imagine what the Quencher is like. I'd link to the website, but it doesn't have one. Here we are:

Sunday- Slept in, then I took advantage of the nice (well, for March) weather and went for a long run along Castle Island. I am finally getting back into the running again, after almost a year of combating plantar fasciitis. My multifaceted treatment included icing, stretching, and resting, cortisone injections, a ridiculous boot I have to wear at night, othrotic inserts, and a permanent ban on flip flops and flats. It’s just one of those chronic, lingering injuries that are best treated by time. And of course, it only became so severe because I foolishly ignored the pain and continued to run and play soccer for a few months after it started bothering me. I’m not going to train for another marathon anytime soon, but I finally feel ready to get back into my normal 5 mile, 4 days a week running routine. Anyways, I ran up to the base of the fort at Castle Island so I could catch a glimpse of the USS JFK, the aircraft carried that is making a farewell stop in Boston before it gets decommissioned. Man, that thing is gigantic. I saw it lit up at night driving across the Summer St. bridge and it was even more impressive.

I rented Babel, and I didn’t really like it. I mean, it's not My Super Ex-Girlfriend bad, but I’m tired of the whole “let’s cover a serious topic by creating a bunch of mini-storylines that somewhat intertwine, bonus points if they involve people of different ethnicities or nationalities” vein of moviemaking. (Traffic, Crash, Syriana…hmmm, a one-word title must be part of the format.) I’ve recently seen a couple of other movies (Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men) that blow Babel out of the water in terms of originality, creativity and the ability to captivate an audience. After seeing Babel, I’m really surprised that it was nominated for Best Picture. The acting was fine, but the characters and the movie seemed too formulaic for me.