Public Service Announcement: The students have descended.

Ladies and gentlemen of Boston:

The students are back.

Yes, it's that time of year again... I first noticed it this morning in Cleveland Circle, where I was puzzled by a higher-than-usual number of people wearing overpriced faux-vintage jeans and cargo shorts on a workday morning. And then it hit me... The glorious 2 months of summer when the big kids rule the city are gone, and bars will once again be packed with fake IDs and screeching groups of girls with identical hair and eye makeup, while the nightly line at your favorite takeout place/ice cream haunt/coffee shop triples and the B Line becomes a sweating mass of backwards baseball caps and Uggs. Sigh.

Fortunately, since I'll be living in the Back Bay this year instead of Allston (a.k.a. RIGHT SMACK IN BETWEEN BC AND BU), I anticipate an existence slightly less overrun by underage types. I will miss terrorizing unsuspecting students with the fabulous Laura at T's on Tuesday nights, however. Ah well... I suppose I can always pop over to Whiskey's, which is right next door, if I miss the collegiate scene that much.

And so, fair student-free days of summer, I bid you a tearful adieu. Boston belongs once again to the young, the loud, the drunk, the fratty, the backpack-toting, the obnoxiously full of pseudo-psychological musings, the clique-y, the Urban Outfitter-shopping, the so-hot-but-wait-he's-like-19, the loud cell phone conversation on the T-having, the subway pass-toting, the be-flip-flopped, the party T-shirt-wearing, the a cappella singing, the endlessly Family Guy-quoting, the cheap beer-drinking, the dance floor-hogging, the impeccably groomed and the deliberately disheveled-looking alike: the students.

Hide your Ikea furniture and your cheap vodka. You've been warned.

How To Fight Loneliness

1. Smile all the time.
2. Shine your teeth 'til meaningless.
3. Sharpen them with lies.

...sorry. Like I mentioned before, I've been listening to Summerteeth a lot lately.

The real point is this: I've been in kind of a weird, anti-social funk lately. It's hot and sticky and I haven't been getting enough sleep, and things in general have just been kind of blah in The Life Of Raquel lately. Boo.

The good news: Today I saw something that completely brightened (literally) up my day. A guy got onto the 86 bus today wearing THE ugliest, brightest, most aggressively attention whore-ish sneakers I have EVER seen. I spent forever on the New Balance website trying to find a picture of said shoes, unsuccessfully, but honestly, I don't even think that any picture could truly do justice to the yellow-ness, the mesh-ness, the be-drawstringed-ness, the utter absurdity of these shoes. They were gloriously, unabashedly hideous. The guy, by contrast, was a fairly average-looking dude: tall, decently handsome, dark hair, conservatively dressed in gray shorts and a black polo. But he was wearing these COMPLETELY INSANE shoes. They GLOWED when he walked. He CUT A SWATH OF FLUORESCENT YELLOW as he strolled, it being a humid and overcast day here in Beantown. In fact, I like to think that he took account of the gloomy weather as he got dressed this morning, thinking to himself, "Man, what a gray and disappointing morning... wait! I know! I'm going to wear my BRIGHT YELLOW SHOES. My feet are going to RADIATE LIGHT. Ha! Take that, crappy August weather."

I literally had the biggest smile on my face the whole way to work because of this guy's shoes. Thank you, Anonymous Yellow Shoe Guy. You are truly an inspiration.




[Reality check update: As it turned out, the guy actually got off the 86 at the New Balance factory in Brighton. He may, in fact, only have been wearing the shoes because it's his job to test new products, not because he awoke with the overwhelming urge to defy the weather with his passion for brightly colored footwear. On the other hand, it is fully possible that this gentleman is actually a product DESIGNER for New Balance. Thus, he could, in fact, be the fevered genius whose bold vision and devil-may-care attitude actually brought about the conceptualization, execution, and, finally, the wearing of those magnificent sneakers.

It boggles the mind. I must find this man. And marry him.]


Sox notes coming later... it's an exciting day for the Scarlet Hose!

I could get used to this

Who knew blogging could be so rewarding? My very first day as a blogger, not only do I finally discover a cathartic, non-violent outlet for my fantasy baseball rage, but I discover another, much cooler blog, make my first ever blog comment on said blog, and get a shout-out in return. Hooray!

For those of you who didn't make it to the movie theaters this weekend, the text over Magglio (my vote for AL MVP, for obvious reasons) is from the long-awaited "Simpsons Movie," which I (along with 80 gajillion other people) saw this weekend. Now, truthfully, I don't consider my opinion on movies in general to be of any help to other people, since it is a well-documented fact that I like really stupid movies and tend to completely miss the point of movies that everyone else thinks are great. Whatever. The point is: the movie is funny. Very funny. Not really REALLY funny -- not "they said that would happen in health class" funny, maybe not even idiot-falling-off-a-treadmill funny. But very funny nonetheless, not to mention laden with inside references to reward those of us who have spent far, far too many hours watching the show and committing its dialogue to memory. (In other words, my entire family.) So I recommend it... at least until this weekend, when "The Bourne Ultimatum" comes out and I regress to 8th grade at the sight of Matt Damon. OMG MATT 4EVAAAAAAAAAA!!1!

Also, today is a good day to talk about trades, being as how it's the MLB trade deadline and there are some big ones (not necessarily baseball ones, either) in the air.

• Mark Teixeira. This doesn't directly affect me in any way, but it's exciting for a number of reasons, the primary one being that the NL East is just a lot of fun to follow right now, and this makes it even more interesting. The Mets riding high, the Phillies on a tear despite Utley's injury, and now Atlanta adding Teixeira's sweet bat to their lineup? Should make for an exciting August and September. Second, between this and the Kenny Lofton trade, it looks like the Rangers are actually putting together some fairly exciting prospects for the fall. Amid the flurry of last-minute padding for the post-season, the Rangers seem to be quietly ceding the rest of the season (at 15.5 games out, that's not surprising) and selling off their offensive leaders in favor of pulling together a strong young team for next year. I like it, I really do. It's not even the post-season and I'm already amped for next season. Yay baseball! Third, and I don't think I'm alone in saying this, I'd like to think that this trade means that everyone's favorite Italian boy, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchialalalalalalala, will finally see some more playing time. Interesting factoid: At 14 letters, Saltalamacchia boasts the longest last name in the history of major league baseball. Beat THAT record, Barry Bonds. And, finally, since Laura, my soon-to-be-roommate, hails from Atlanta, I must say that I'm glad that residents/fans of "the city where the players play" (where they ride on them streets like every day) have something to talk about that doesn't involve, you know, dog electrocution. In this trade, it seems, everyone comes out a winner.
• Eric Gagne and/or Jermaine Dye. With the trade deadline looming, these appear to be the two trades that the Sox front office has on the table. Hmm... let me think... with an offensively struggling and injury-prone J.D. Drew dragging down the outfield, a team considers making a trade for Jermaine Dye... why does this sound familiar... hmm... OH GOD NO DON'T DO IT! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! *wakes up in a cold sweat* Huh? Where was I? Oh. Right. My personal fantasy league vendettas aside, both of these trades have good potential -- not in terms of providing us with a massive boost in any particular category, but rather by bolstering the Sox in some weaker areas. I like that Dye can play first, so he can provide support for Youkilis as well as the outfield, and as far as Eric Gagne is concerned, WE NEED MIDDLE RELIEF PITCHING. We could do much worse that having to choose between a Cy Young winner and a World Series MVP. Either way, I guess I'll know which direction the Sox decide to go in by the end of the day... and either way, one thing is for sure: I'll spend the rest of the season complaining that the decision they made was the wrong one. Hooray!
• Bobby Abreu. Nope. Hawkins appears to have gotten cold feet on this one (and to think, a week ago he was offering me Jason Bay for Roy Oswalt!), so The Turtles will remain as they are for now, unless I accept one of Safran's ridiculous 3-mediocre-players-for-one-Alfonso-Soriano trades. Which I won't.
• The D Line. I'd been taking the C from Cleveland Circle to get downtown because of the stupid shuttle bus on the D Line when it occured to me that I can still just get on the D at Reservoir and get downtown in about half the time -- plus, to make up for the irritating construction, the MBTA is letting people ride inbound from Reservoir for free. It seems that Boston's ridiculous, convoluted, outdated subway system is finally working in my favor. Maybe they figure they owe me since I lived on the B(ullshit) Line all this past year.

and, finally, obviously, the big one...

• Kevin Garnett. I know, I know, it hasn't been confirmed yet... I mean, it was confirmed in The Herald, but that POS newspaper is about as reliable as that dental student I met at Clery's a few weeks ago who told me I was the perfect girl for him. Seriously, though, I'm excited about this trade. For several reasons. No, this is not the most exciting thing to happen to Boston sports this year (RANDY MOSS RANDY MOSS RANDY MOSS), but I'd like to think that the addition of K-Garn to my beloved Celtics will make people in Boston start giving a shit about the Celtics again, especially after we got screwed over in the draft pick lottery. It would be nice to go to a Celts game and have it be CROWDED for once, or to go out around the Garden and see people who are out drinking because they just came from a basketball game (instead of because they came to watch the Cavs game at a sports bar). Damn it, I want to be able to wear my glitter-ized Paul Pierce jersey with PRIDE!!! So, Kevin Garnett, I welcome you to Boston with (glittery) open arms. Maybe I'll even start a chicks-only fan club for you, a la Grady's Ladies. I'll call it Garnett's... Pets. Yeesh. Well, I'll get back to you on that. But welcome to Beantown nonetheless.
  

Happy MLB Trade Deadline Day, everyone. May your favorite team be showered with whatever it is they need showering with, be it relief pitching, solid fielding, good baserunning, or good old fashioned love.