Fried Everything

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*
Alert there has been a fire emergency detected in this complex.  Please remain on hold while we blast loud alarm noises to deafen you and allow the fire to spread through out the building.  If in fact there is a fire emergency the alarm will sound after this message repeats ad nauseum.

Our Pleasant, but Alarm plagued home

Emily and I have been enjoying our stay at our new home in MacGregor for a couple months now.  The GRT suite is cozy, the people are great, and the cost cannot be beat.  However, our pleasant home has recently become plagued with an omnipresent alarm system.

Recently a group of students deep fried everything in sight while maintaining a regulated environment which avoided any alarms from triggering.  Only hours later however, the sound of alarms filled the building around 4am seemingly caused by nothing more that temperature fluctuations outside.  This has been repeated frequently since including at 3am this morning and no less than 8 times the past few weeks.  It's unclear what the problem is but rumor has it that there is a water pressure sensor gone awry in the basement.  Frustrated students have begun the construction of a digital clock to count the hours since the last alarm which is an upgrade from last year's duct tape day tally.

*BEEP*,
Matt

Time Warp: The Move

Whoa what just happened?  Did we just fall through a time hole?  Where are we?

Oh I see we're back at the move!  I guess its my fault for trying to escape the past - apparently you eventually fall through a time hole.  That must be where those words of wisdom came from.  Well on to business.  Check out that mess.

Well at least that room back there doesn't look too full of stuff.  This must be right after we got 97% of our things INTO the GRT rooms.  As you can see.  There's a lot to be unpacked.

First things first.  I walked from Ashdown with a pirate ship perched on my shoulder while everyone else carried heavy but inconsequential goods around me.  The ship quickly found a comfy home one the mantle.

Fortunately for our unpacking needs, we neatly organized the initial placement of all the bags of clothes, boxes of electronics and other randomness so we could get through everything as efficiently as possible.  HA.  The photo is a lie.  Despite our clothes being near the closet we spent a large amount of time moving our boxes and bags back and forth between rooms to make space for whatever-it-was that we were unpacking at the current moment in time.

...

Aeons pass and eventually the essentials begin to be finished..  Almost all the boxes are gone and the most important furniture is set up.  

...

No it's not the shelving that Emily made with all of our appliances, kitchenware and food on it. 

 It's the TV setup in the back!

(I turn to the right.) Oh right... Did I say the boxes were gone?  I actually meant we threw them into the bathroom for temporary storage.  Not too bad though.  They're below the doorknob so it's fine.

Well I guess we still have a long ways to go.  Looks like the bedroom hasn't even started yet!  Anyways by this point we were getting hungry so back to the kitchen...

After getting all the plates, bowls, and cups unloaded the difference between girly shot glasses and manly ones became quite apparent.  Regardless after some quick refreshments we were back to hard work.  Soon however I felt the distinct need to use the restroom.

Hmm... That looks distinctly like the middle hinge there and it is quite buried.  Perhaps I can climb over?

Nope that isn't going to work. Be right back...

...

Well the boxes have been dealt with accordingly for their attempt to conquer the restroom.  And even better we've successfully moved in!  

Time to begin our job of living in as the GRTs of E-Entry @ Macgregor!

That wraps up today's adventure!  So now do I find another time hole back to the present or just wait until it arrives?

See you some time,

Matt

Urban archaeology

Matt and I had an adventure Saturday afternoon. We were walking through some shortcuts to get to Whole Foods in a different part of Cambridge, when suddenly we encountered a Sign...

Pika?? What was this? Does Pikachu live in Boston? Do they sell Pika-stew on the streets here??? For a while the arrows continued in the direction of Whole Foods, but eventually we had to choose a path: groceries, or pokemon. Of course you know which on we chose. The signs continued....

We continued to follow the trail, finding more and more clues along the streets of Cambridge.

And just when we thought there were no pokemon involved...

Finally, we discovered where all these signs were actually leading us:



You can't really see it in this picture, but under the street address sign (where it says 69) is the word "Pika." Later research (an ethnographic survey of native MITers) determined this "Pika" to be, not a pokemon, but rather a wacky and fun MIT independent living group, pronounced pike-uh, rather than peek-uh.

But random not-pokemon houses were not the only things we found on our journey, also of note were a really cool house with a spiral stair outside leading down into the garden, and also what is obviously the coolest street sign in Cambridge.

All this traipsing around the city and finding cool things was pretty tiring work, and, more to the point, we were pretty hungry by the time we were in the actual grocery store. On our way home, I was complaining to Matt about the food I was craving from back home that they just don't have here in Boston. Mostly moe's. Mmmmmm a Moe's burrito sounded really delicious right then--and frankly, it does right now! Then, all of a sudden, we spotted another relic that seemed to have appeared only to mock us....

Moe's cup! Where did you come from? How did you appear, battered and abandoned, so close to our home and yet so far from yours? More to the point, can you lead me back to where you and your delicious burrito kin live?

And so our next quest will be to see if we can find out from whence this wayward cup came. Also, Matt promised to post soon about our crazy move in experience, complete with awesome pictures. Stay tuned!

--Emily

A Post Modern Lounge

Today Emily hijacked a number of unsuspecting undergrads and lured them all into her lair of post-modern philosophizing. The unsuspecting students sat happily in the lounge chatting of broken bikes and Munchkins. The topic slowly turned to film which sunk the conversation deeper and deeper into the dark depths of theory.

Memento has been added to the viewing queue. Inception had to follow from that. Matrix locked them in with its robotic intricacies. A finally Fight Club in its theoretical perfection knocked the conversation deep in to the abstract ocean of abstractness.

Once they began to drown there was discussion of trees in all their forms. Perhaps they were trying to grow a ladder with which to climb out. The goal if it ever existed was doomed. Emily continued to direct them like marionettes towards EnglishMajorLand.

As the conversation grew on though even Emily could not predict its course as once quantum theory enters the picture, it all comes down to dice rolls. Probably d20s.

See you in the Multiverse,

Matt

There's a first time for everything, including blog posts

Hello world!

So this is where Matt and I are going to post (on a somewhat regular basis, we hope) about our new lives as newlyweds in Cambridge/Boston. Of course, we are about 3 weeks late in getting started, but as it turns out moving, unpacking, and helping run a dorm are demanding activities, so we didn't get a chance to actually sit down and start the blog until now.

Since nothing in particular is going on right now and we're so late in even starting the blog, we're actually going to rewind a bit in time and catch you all up on how we got to this mostly-settled state. We'll start with our honeymoon adventures, because why not?

Refresher: we went to Cancun for our honeymoon and stayed at an all inclusive resort called Dreams. They had a dolphin lagoon on site, which Matt loved even though we didn't actually pay to swim with the dolphins ourselves.

Things we learned in Mexico:

1. Don't forget to take cash when you go to inclusive resorts so you can actually tip people. We had a little bit, but really, not enough. (see? clueless.)

2. Iguanas and hermit crabs alike LOVE bananas.

3. After 2 or 3 tequilas anybody can speak Spanish fluently.

4. It never rains in Cancun, even when you hear thunder

5. A tall shot of melon liquour is called a Scooby Dooby Doo

6. Getting a picture of a leaping dolphin using a digital camera is way harder than it should be

So we don't have any good pictures of the dolphins, but here are some pictures of our other adventures ^.^

The view from our balcony

On the rocky side of the beach

The sandy and swimmable beach

We did get some authentic mexican food, complete with sombrero photo opp, but.....

Mostly we ate sushi. It was delicious.

--Emily