Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Obviously I am not endorsing running around shooting people but a friend sent me this and I thought it looks like a hilarious movie.

(Of course this also has to be a disclaimer because this is the world we live in - where people do an internet search about you before they hire you, date you, let their kids stand in line at the bank behind you - so officially note that I am not telling anyone to imitate anything in this movie, or endorsing this behavior in any fashion. Thanks, world, for being a place where I actually have to write this dislaimer.)

So we went to Smuggler's Notch on January 17th on a trip that was supposed to be for two days. The first day we had a lot of fun even though it rained at the end of the afternoon.

Unfortunately, that meant the next day everything was a sheet of ice. The good news is they gave us vouchers to come back another time. The bad news is we wasted our money renting a car for 2 days and on a hotel to stay there overnight.

However, we got to prove how hard core we were by snowboarding in the rain for about an hour and a half. See?

You should know by now that I love animals. You should also know that I especially love dogs. And that I am getting a softer and softer spot all the time for the much-maligned pit bull.

Here is a sweet little story about a pair of sweet pit bull girls that accepted 15 chickens into their family.

Yes, clearly pit bulls are very vicious.

Rob wrote a very good post about this so I won't repeat the whole thing, you should read his.

People who know me know I'm kind of a total tv junkie so it took quite a bit for us to get to this point but I'm hoping it will be an overall improvement. For starters, it will save us money. Secondly, as Rob says, it makes us no longer tools of Comcast and DirecTV. Thirdly, I hope it means we'll only seek out things we actually want to watch and therefore watch less junk and fill our time with better things.

Anyway, a big customer service fail to DirecTV.

So apparently Ellen Degeneres is for some reason delving into pet food. Now based on what little I know about her from media, it seems like she is someone who has a genuine love and concern for animals, but I obviously don't know her personally. Even so, I'd be happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she is making a big mistake developing a vegan based pet food.

Please read this very informative article about why feeding your carnivorous pet a plant-based diet is a bad idea.

It seems quite obvious to me. It is not mean or bad of dogs and cats to eat meat. It is what they are supposed to do. It is natural. If you personally want to abstain from meat or even from all animal products, I don't agree with your logic, but you can go right ahead, it doesn't hurt you as long as you get the nutrients you need from your diet. Your pet, however, needs meat.

If the article is too long or hard for you to read, how about just watching this short clip form Futurama? It pretty much gets right to the point.

If that doesn't warm your heart then you probably have no business being here at my site.

This is a puppy named Guppy and a tortoise named Crouton. They live at Rocky Ridge Refuge which is about one of the most wonderful places I've ever heard of.

( Update : This puppy is one that Janice decided to keep as a companion for Crouton because she loved this litter of puppies so much. The others were adopted. So sweet that Crouton gets to keep this friend!)

Janice, the owner of the land and the woman who runs the refuge, goes above and beyond what most people would expect on a regular basis to help the animals that end up in her care.

She has rescued, rehabilitated, and cared for everything from dogs and cats to water buffalo, zebras, deer, skunks, and capybaras.

Want to see dogs napping in a field with deer? Janice has it. Bunnies snuggling with pit bulls? Check. Ducklings and kittens hanging out together? Yep.

Beyond the ridiculously adorable photos such as this one, Janice does really important work and is kind of my hero.

If you ever have the desire to donate to an animal rescue related cause, I'd love for you to keep Rocky Ridge in mind. It is entirely funded with Janice's own personal resources and donations.

Check out her site as well. She does outreach locally and welcomes visitors to the refuge.

This is what I'm talking about when I say we aren't too far from uniformed officers on the street demanding to see my "papers" when I innocently walk down a public street.

On Monday, January 9th, this student and blogger was arrested in New Hampshire for breaking no laws and creating no disorder. I'll let you read his account, then please come back and tell me what you think.

Congratulations, Romney campaign, and local police force in Hudson, NH, for clearly showing your utter lack of concern for all of the following:

1. Acting sensibly
2. Individual Constitutional rights
3. Due process

I can't blame the guy for steering clear of the area after his release from jail but it would have been kind of awesome if he went back to the site of the arrest and did exactly nothing, just to see what would happen.

I ask you, reader, what do we do with this? It is clearly utter nonsense. Hey, maybe he should be "thankful" that he wasn't detained for suspected terrorist activity. Since that's something the government can do now with no cause. (In case you missed it, our wonderful president signed this into law.)

I mean this story boils my blood. I feel like I'm in a movie about the dystopian future where no one realizes yet how bad it is and things are about to go to total shit.

I mean, here's another thing - you know those kind of creepy devices you can put in your car to lower your insurance rate? Well read that entire post to hear about something much creepier. The future is now and it's not a Jetsons future, it's the other kind.

Happy Wednesday.

Here is today's tip. For me this comes up all the time when I do mail merges using an Excel file for the address data and a Word document for the actual letters.

In Excel 2010 I couldn't find the command I was used to finding under the "Insert" menu in earlier versions of Excel (pre-"ribbon").

I found these instructions online which told me exactly how to do it. (Of course, you have to customize a special sub-menu - why not? Thanks, Microsoft, once again.)

I thought I would pass this on to my many many many readers. ;)

I hate when they quirkily don't do what they should. I hate when I have to call customer service at Verizon and sit through 4 prompts listening to messages about 3G versus 4G activations which do not apply to me before I can get a human being. I hate people whining about which phone they want and why they need an upgrade when they don't qualify for one yet through the carrier and their current phone works just fine.

I would in fact be quite happy to go back to everyone just having a phone at their desk and that's all. That would be kind of lovely.

(I manage the cell phones for everyone at my company, thus my day of cell phone extreme annoyance.)

Sorry, Mom and Dad, for the swearing, but it's warranted.

Please read this account of a court hearing from the ACLU and tell me you don't find it pretty fucking disturbing. Because I do.

For Pete's sake, this is fucking Massachusetts. Bluest of the blue states. What in holy hell is going on, my beloved pinko-commie Commonwealth?

I don't like it at all. What happened to Give me liberty or give me death America? We decided that wasn't important anymore, because the most important things are apparently safety and order.

This country was founded on a lot of principles that society doesn't seem to give a flying fuck about anymore. It's deeply upsetting to me.