There's always something you say constantly. In TV shows, those are the catchphrases years later we still quote, like Stephanie Tanner's (from Full House) "How rude!" or Arnold's (Gary Coleman) "Whatcha talkin' about, Willis?" from Diff'rent Strokes. In the real world, we do the same thing, but we don't hear an audience laughing everytime we do it. I have a few sayings of my own, some are funny and some... not so much.

"Oy, with the poodles already!"
This is a quote from my favorite show, Gilmore Girls. It appears on Season 2, Episode 22 (I Can't Get Started). The phrase comes up in the episode as the union of the world's funniest words: "oy" and "poodle". According to Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), it would knock out "Whatcha talkin' about, Willis?" out of first place for best catchphrase. I use it, when I'm exhasperated by something or someone because it's so ridiculously funny that it breaks the tension or the stress. During finals is when I use it more.

"Five second dance party!"
It comes from the TV show JONAS, on Episode 16 from Season 1 (Forgetting Stella's Birthday). No shame. It was one of those things you hear or you see and think it's funny, but not THAT funny. Yet, either way, a few days later, you are laughing because of it and later on, you end up loving it. Yeah, it was like that. I use this phrase, when I celebrate my little victories. As a plus, it keeps me laughing.

"Holy crap on a cracker!"
It's from The Big Bang Theory, and the character of Penny (Kaley Cuoco) says it repeatedly in the Episode 6 from Season 2 (The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem). It means you are shocked by something. I say it when something weird happens. In fact, I used this phrase this morning, when my dog pulled me back in our garage because the garbage truck was coming.

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."
This is a Mark Twain quote, and it means that a person who doesn't want to be informed or doesn't want to know what's happening around them is no better than a person who can't know or can't be informed. This quote reminds me of Puerto Rico's situation, since there's a lot of people who refuse to learn about our history, some even refuse to know about today's news, and if we go on being this ignorant, our situation won't get any better.

Serendipity is one of my favorite words. Ok, I'll admit it; it's my favorite word. First of all, it's fun to say. Second, it's not a word one hears very often. Lastly, I love the meaning of it. It's like the picture says' it's a happy accident. The first time I heard this word was when I watched the movie titled Serendipity. That's when the first time I searched for its meaning. Now, I'm searching again. Here are some of the quotes I found:

"Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for." -Lawrence Block

"Life is full of surprises and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure, do it well, enjoy it, and then, not now, think about what comes next." -Condoleeza Rice 

"There'll always be serendipity involved in discovery." -Jeff Bezos

After searching for this word, I wasn't as surprised as I was when I searched for the other words. I saw posters for the movie, scenes from the movie, references to Lee DeWyze's song (Sweet Serendipity) and pictures from the restaurant Serendipity 3. However, I was surprised that a picture of an ice cream sundae came up, since it has nothing to do with the word.

Honesty

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." -Thomas Jefferson

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." -Groucho Marx

"I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy."-George Bernard Shaw

Friendship

"A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world." -Leo Buscaglia

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." -Oprah Winfrey

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." -C.S. Lewis

Strength

"Continous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential." -Winston Churchill

"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot." -Eleanor Roosevelt

"Patience and time do more than strength or passion." -Jean de la Fontaine

Women

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." -Virginia Woolf

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” -Joseph Conrad

"Above all, be the heorine of your life, not the victim." -Nora Ephron

Men

"What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce." -Mark Twain

"You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” -Brigham Young

"Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them."
-Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

Drugs

"Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment."
-Philip K. Dick

"One thing I've learned is it's better to be addicted to things than people. You get hooked on a thing and if someone takes it from you, you can find another source. Only people can really hurt you. Only people can push you out into the cold permanently." -A.M. Riley

“It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behavior." -Gabor Maté

Love

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." -Friederich Nietzsche

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." -Mother Teresa

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -Robert A. Heinlein

Motivation

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." -Steve Jobs

"But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill themselves."
-Albert Camus

"Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience."
-Victoria Holt

Sarcasm

"Sarcasm doesn't translate in print at all." -Megan Fox

"Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."
-Fyodor Dostoviesky

"It's wildly irritating to have invented something as revolutionary as sarcasm, only to have it abused by amateurs." 
-Christopher Moore

Dr. Seuss

"Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!" -Dr. Seuss

"Adults are obsolete children." -Dr. Seuss

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant." -Dr. Seuss

Searching for these words was fun, but I didn't expect to find what I did. For example, I didn't expect to find an image of a drunk Snow White, when I was looking for the word "liberty". Out of all of these, my favorites were Dr. Seuss and love.

Long gone are the days when Tim Burton movies weren't immediately associated with Johnny Depp or his fiancee Helena Bonham Carter, or so we thought. Burton's remake, of his own short film, is lacking those two names, but not much else. This time around he teams up with familiar faces too (or should I say voices?), like Catherine O'Hara (Beetlejuice), Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands), Martin Short (Mars Attacks!), Martin Landau (Ed Wood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Christopher Lee (Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.), among others. This animated movie is part family movie and part sci-fi/horror (Disney approved, of course). It also features a score by a name, that has has also been linked to Burton's multiple times, Danny Elfman and a screenplay by John August.

Frankenweenie takes us to the town of New Holland where a young boy named Victor loses his dog and only friend, Sparky. Victor decides to bring Sparky back from the dead, using one of the things he loves the most--science. But, trouble ensues, when other people find out what he has done. Some people think it's monstrous and unethical, while others think it's the perfect science project. As you can see people in New Holland do not take well to change, and Burton makes it a challenge for his audience to decipher when exactly the movie takes place. As a nice Easter egg, he puts on the town's cinema "Bambi Coming Soon". This should be a clear clue that the movie takes place in 1942, but it doesn't make sense that the movie takes place then. I think it's one of many nudges Burton makes in this movie; this one saying that this town is behind for its time.

Other nudges the director makes in this movie can be found in the characters. All of them are either eerie (my brother called one of them: "The girl from The Shining.") or a clear pop culture reference to a horror or sci-fi movie like the character of Edgar (look for his picture and last name) and Nassor (who is a Boris Karloff look-alike). These character are well rounded and when something looks unnatural is because the character in itself is unnatural. Even the dogs (Sparky and Persephone) and the cat (Mr. Whiskers) have clear personalities, which comes to show the attention to detail Burton has.

This movie is the perfect mix of monster movie cliches and a lovable story; it could have gone terribly wrong, but it didn't. It also has a good balance between the novel Frankenstein and all the cliches that are associated with the movies that are based on Mary Shelley's novel (for example, mob with fire and pitchforks, Victor's partner, Frankenstein's bride, etc.). In between all of this monster movie goodness, it teaches us that we do not have to fear what we don't understand, and instead of remaining ignorant we should inform ourselves. In a nutshell, the movie's message is for us to not be like New Holland's citizens. This movie is a definite change from what we have seen in Burton's recent movies (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland). Instead of continuing with the colorful palette he was using in those two films, he went back to his roots of stop-motion animation, darker colors (this movie is completely in black and white) and a creepy premise, with a story full of heart, and I think it's one of his finest moments. As a fun fact, I'll tell you that Disney Studios fired Burton, when he made the original short film, however this movie became one of Disney's crowning moments for this year, with special 4-D previews in Disneyland, art exhibits and so much more as some of the promotional events they had for the film.

Puerto Rico's roads are one of our bigger faults. The potholes, craters and holes are everywhere; they do not stay confined to one city or one area. I bet 100% of us feel them and see them every day, unless you use a helicopter to move around the island. The problem isn't necessarily that potholes happen because they'll always happen, but it seems like it's always happening here. I've been to different parts of the United States, and I've never seen streets like ours over there. However, I have seen crews paving streets after 9 pm  just like it happens here, right? No. Quite the contrary, they decide to fix the streets, when the traffic jams are at their worst. Yes, Puerto Rico does do it better.

The way our streets are is something more than aesthetics, for it affects our cars. I've seen cars get stuck inside potholes (specifically in the pothole on Road 861), lose tires, damage their engines, etc. Why does this happen? First of all, the holes I'm talking about aren't rinky-dinky ones; they are huge, your-car-can-get-stuck-in, Lunar landing craters, like the ones you can see in the photos. The rain is the main culprit for our pothole-ridden streets, as if Puerto Rico was the only place in the world where it rained. I suspect, like the author of the article "Los dichosos hoyos en las carreteras de Bayamón" does, that the materials we use on our streets are cheap. Well, it's either that our rain is so acidic that it melts off the asphalt. As lame as it sounds, our government has come up with lamer excuses than that like the little insects that made our electric bill go up. I'm not kidding you. They try to fix them with patches that eventually wear off, and, when they decide they're going to get to the root of the problem, they make a bigger hole. It'd be fine, if they actually would try to fix it, after they make the problem worse, but no. They leave the big gaping hole open for weeks or months, filling up with water, getting bigger, causing a bigger pain on our butts, yet they assure us they have it under control. Really? It doesn't seem like it.

This gets me mad because my family and I drive by them every day. To go about our daily activities, we drive by the massive hole on Road 861 every day, and a year ago there was a big crater near my urbanization, right on a curve, where nobody could see it and with only one orange barrel to indicate the drivers of its presence. That hole, after the whole Holiday season came and went--it appeared about a week before Thanksgiving--it was finally fixed. The situation on Road 861 is more complicated than that one. When they redesigned this road, they forgot one little thing called draining. After just a few raindrops the water has nowhere to go, so it just floods the center of the intersection between Road 861 and Road 862; my dad calls it the Black Sea. The more it rains, the worse it gets. In this case, the rain is the culprit, but it's not like that on every road. They fixed it a couple of times, but it hasn't worked. This August it got so bad that the lane where the hole was, which in that moment had become a cornucopia of holes right next to the other, became unfit to be driven on. They tried to fix it again, but it just reappeared once more. Now, they've made the big hole that's seen in the picture, but two weeks have passed (almost three) and nothing has changed.

This problem is as big as the holes we see on our streets because its roots go far back. The roots of this problem I would say is laziness. People here are always too eager to cut corners or leave projects incomplete. The problem with that is that it keeps getting worse, as time goes on. I don't expect this to wake up one morning and for it to be magically fixed, but I do expect that, at least, baby steps are taken towards a real solution not more patches. Instead of covering all the tantalizing political events, the media should focus a bit more on this problem. As a side note, it actually feels good to get this off my chest.

News articles:

Denuncian carreteras en malas condiciones en Toa Baja
Estancada la reconstrucción de carretera en Toa Alta por avería en tubería de agua
Colapsa carretera en urbanización Forest Hills en Bayamón
Hoyo se traga urbanización en Cayey
En pésimas condiciones carretera en Toa Alta
Los dichosos hoyos en las carreteras de Bayamón
En condición deplorable carretera 861 en Bayamón