Brick, where'd you get a hand grenade?

Let’s talk about Cat’s recent fan-girl obsessions.



First off, I LOVE JASON BOURNE. He’s really a recent discovery. Much like I found X-Men after the third movie, the release of the third movie made me think, “Hey, those were okay movies. I should go re-watch the first two.” In doing so, I’ve fallen in love.

Jason Bourne, as a character, is just precious, like a child. The loss of his memory made him so infantile and through the movies and the books, you watch this tough guy grow up, really. That’s amazing: seeing I’M A MAN acting like a little boy. Not to mention the fact, he’s a PTSD victim in extreme, put through so much stress that he snaps. But, not a negative snap, a snap back into adolescence. I think we can see him as a statement about how tightly wound up American soldiers, in the Army, or in various secret programs you’re not supposed to know about, really are. He’s a mildly believable hero.



It's really a movie-Wolverine factor: a man can't remember his past, in which he probably wasn't a good person, but because of severe trauma, he wakes up a new man. It's that whole idea, a fresh beginning, only because you can't remember anything else, a re-birth, that is what makes it intriging to me, really.

But, what makes him really believable... he really exists. His actual life is just completely twisted, to the point where he's looking like a dual personality. I do wonder how David Webb feels about all this, his life the basis for millions of dollars worth of profit. That's really my one hangup with it. But, as a character, Jason Bourne/David Webb is fantastic.

Not only that, the field of action movies is flooding with “watch the American flag in the background” and “watch the white house blow up” (the government is now reading my blog… these movies have also made me paranoid). Sure, there’s action movies that question the involvement of American government, but these movie look at foreign policy and foreign presence at an extreme. The US government involved in the assassination of a foreign dictator?!? NEVER! This is where the "based on actual events" becomes so interesting.



They really can be read as very liberal action films, but that’s not why I like ‘em. Oh Jason Bourne, you’re my favorite tough guy.


MATT DAMON!


Secondly, Amy Winehouse. Oh. Amy Winehouse. What a delightful mess. I bought Back To Black a few weeks ago and it only took me one listen to know that she was amazingly talented, but also headed straight for crazy.



She’s like Lohan, but actually worth something. That album is pulled straight from Motown; it’s almost like the Supremes going dirty. And really, who didn’t want that?



Third on the list would be The Glass Castle, a fantastic little memoir written by Jeannette Walls. Her background is journalism, so her take on memoir is so unsentimental. I can’t decide if I loved it or if I hated it so much that I was completely intrigued by it. Not once does she ask for sympathy; she never used the phrase “I felt…” or “it made me feel like…”. I read it in a day, and I recommend you do the same.



These headphones are my new best friend. I actually got them a few months ago, with the purchase of Spring Chicken, my new iPod, but I kept having issues with the little silicone ear pieces falling off. I lost my last piece, while mowing for my mom a few days ago. So, today I went to the Bose website to order more and, amazingly, I'm not the only one who's had that issue. So, they've been sending out replacement ear pieces for free. WHAT. Who does that? Apparently, Bose does. So, you see, there is a reason to spend $99 on earbuds (aside from the best sound quality ever).

Oddly enough, I've also been fan-girling baseball. It might just be because of the anticipation of college football starting oh-so-soon, but I think it's a little bit more. The Rangers/Cubs game I went to, seeing Sammy Sosa hit that run, made me think a little bit more. I started researching this whole Home Run derby, Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's record, the steriod allegations, etc. and it became a little consuming for a few days. I was watching Larry Kind with my mom, because we do that like the good little liberals we are, and Bill Maher was on. Someone asked him what he thought about Barry Bonds. He said steroids didn't ruin baseball, money did. And that made a whole lotta sense.

You wanna talk about purity of the game, going back to the days before drugs and booze, then players are probably going to have to start playing just because they want to, and not for $1 million just for suiting up. I may not know much about sports, but that's pretty clear.

Food wise, since we’ve covered the rest of the basics, I’ve been eating a lot of artichokes. The Smiths in Edgewood has them for $2.00. So, I’ve been driving down there, buying an artichoke, bringing back to my mom’s, boiling it, and eating it’s tastiness with lemon juice. It’s good for when I’m being snacky and really just want queso.

Searching for wifi in the East Mountains is a battle. The Moriaty Public Library has it for free, as all good libraries should, so I'm there right now. But, man, if the staff ever grumpy.