I may be three weeks late, but at least I’m faithful. Here’s a writeup about the night of the previous post. The day was indeed saved.
I dislike falling into a stereotypical bucket, but Andrew had no such qualms: he was decked out in an MIT cardigan over a Firefox t-shirt.
At Ivy we had:
- Herb frites (shared; they were overfried.)
- Lamb rip chops with bean ragù (for me; they were ok.)
- Arancini stuffed with prosciutto and fontina (for Andrew.)
- Chicken alla Puttanesca (shared; delicious: “sauteéd chicken served over penne pasta in a puttanesca style sauce of capers, garlic, olives, and artichoke hearts”.)
- Tiramisu (shared; great.)
We were done by just 9:30pm so we walked over to Loews Theatres to see if anything interesting was playing. I pointed to the dark Boston Common bordered with Christmas lights—“it’s the oldest public park in the country.” To which, Andrew remarked that the Greater Boston area seems to be full of superlatives 
It’s true, though—take one of the first places settled by European civilization out here, add in a ridiculously high number of educational institutions, and you’ll get some magic going. Overachieving college kids and researchers, a thriving business community, even pseudo-aristocrats: Boston has it.
While we waited for Casino Royale to begin, Andrew pulled out his laptop and demoed the app he’s been working on for over an year: Quizlet. Quizlet helps with the practice and learning of vocabulary. It’s really quite cool; I remarked about half a dozen times that I was impressed. He’s paid fabulous attention to detail in the user experience, including a gorgeous design.
You can trust my opinion when it comes to web development, and I’m telling you, this guy is hot. Apparently, others agree—he’s just halfway through 11th grade and has been offered a job at the MIT Media Lab for summer ‘07.
I’m not a Bond devotee, but for what it’s worth, I agree with the critics—Casino Royale rocks. The opening scenes are almost film noir, and the art direction in the rest of the movie doesn’t disappoint.
The movie’s full of exceptional dialogue—“I would ask you if you could remain emotionally detached”, asks 007’s boss, “but that’s not your problem, is it, Bond?” (Although there’s a slice of pillow talk so clunky, you’d have thought you were watching a George Lucas film: after musing that she always falls for ‘bad men’, a woman asks, “Why can’t nice guys be more like you?” Bond replies: “Then, they’d be bad.” ¿Que?)
Choosing to watch Casino Royale at that time was a somewhat bad idea, because we missed the ending 40 minutes to catch the last train. On our way back to the subway stop, a generic drunk blonde coed swinging off her hands on a lamp post stopped inches from Andrew’s face and blared, “Do you know the way to Hennessey Street?”
Um, Miss? The kid’s jailbait!*
* Well, not really.
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