Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Sorry to be gone so long. We are having computer/server changes taking place at home that meant my site was down for over a week. I should be back regularly now.

I'm too tired to have much to report at the moment, but we had to put our sweet sweet kitty Oliver to sleep last Monday night. He became suddenly very sick and had a tumor, probably cancer. He was the best cat ever. :(

First of all, these people are my new favorite people. I think their commerical is really kind of kick-ass. Of course, the bastards at CBS and NBC are refusing to air it because it's too contraversial (lots of other networks are airing it, including ABC Family, TNT, Fox, among others). Yeah, that's pretty contraversial. "Everybody is welcome in our church." What a horrifyingly contraversial message. Those crazy nuts at the United Church of Christ, when will they learn?

Hey, you're not doing anything important - I know that because you're reading this - so why not take a second to email CBS and NBC and tell them what you think about this?

This is pretty funny. I like the monkey shooting up. He must go to the Starbucks on School Street in Boston. That's where all the cool kids go to shoot up in the bathroom so that it has to be shut down and cleaned by people in bio-hazard suits which means us normal people who don't shoot up can't use the bathroom. Bastards.

This is my favorite part of this article:

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Oh yes, the tyranny of tolerance. How oppressed you are as an intolerant biggot. I feel your pain. Asshole.

Hope everyone had a great day! Rob and I went to Syracuse. More on that later.

Like this guy for instance.

I don't have anything new to say, but I just want to make sure that everyone understand that this guy is out of his mind. Evidence:

"During the campaign, he said he favored the death penalty for abortion providers and that he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools. He called state legislators "crapheads"..."

Ha ha, no more fox hunting for you, you old bastards. Kind of funny. I think it's interesting that it's such a kind of high-end sport for some reason, with the fancy red jackets and the horses. Meanwhile hunting in the US is all about goofy fluorescent orange camouflage and people accidentally shooting women in their backyards who live too close to deer country. What a world.

Learn more about it here. Former president Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. were there as well as good ol' Dubya and of course Clinton's family.

Are we sure we can't just make Clinton president for life? Maybe we can clone him. Get on it, Science.

Hey everybody, lucky you... in case you want to support my obsessive knitting/crocheting habit, you can find my wishlist here. Now hurry up and order, because there is currently a 20% discount on anything you order form my wishlist! Only till December 20th though. Thanks!

Well, they arrested somebody. Now if he did it, they might as well just throw this kid in a room and lose the key. What is fundamentally wrong with you as a person that you are raping people at age 16 (not that it's OK when you're older)? Seriously. It's ridiculous.

The correct answer to this poll is Brandeis University.

I temped for a couple of months when I first moved here. First at Brandeis which meant taking the commuter rail from Porter Square station every day (I walked from Inman Square). Then I temped at a law firm for a few weeks, then at the Mass Turnpike Authority for a couple of days before starting my real job at Syska & Hennessy. After that came Payette and now I'm at Shawmut.

I worked at Crate & Barrel (the Fanieul Hall location) while I worked at Syska, during the holiday season of 1998-99 (it was a seasonal job).

Read all about it! Here are several reasons that people totally suck.

1. The Catholic church sucks.

2. People who are too fucking stupid to feed their children suck.

3. People who shoot someone in the head and film it and post it on the internet should have their own heads blown off. By the way, let's add that this woman was against sanctions and the war and worked for years helping Iraqis in humanitarian efforts. I guess we all learned our lesson: don't help anybody.

Oh, and don't forget about genocide in Rwanda, hate crimes in the Netherlands, and then there's this guy, who is clearly insane, except in the state of Oklahoma.

Oops, too bad this happened on my street. I don't even know in which building. Not mine I assume but somewhere close by, within a block.

Even better, I had been out right around that time - I ran down to the convenience store to get a couple of things. Yeah, I won't really be going anywhere without Rob or Billy the dog anymore. It's kind of dumb and reactionary, but you can't really help it. What else can you do?

Too bad this is the closest I've been to a crime since moving to Boston 6 years ago, meanwhile it's supposedly the safest and best neighborhood I've lived in. Oops.

I'm sure this shark can look forward to being hunted down and killed now. See my previous thoughts on animals that eat people.

Hooray! The rate of girls ages 10-14 having babies is the lowest it's been in the US since 1946! Congrats, 10-14 year olds for being less slutty!

OK, so this article is kind of interesting. Then my eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I read this line:

Visa and MasterCard are nonprofit associations made up of thousands of bank members.

I guess I never really thought about exactly what Visa and Mastercard were... but I certainly never would have thought of them as non-profits. Sounds pretty shady to me. If you're a non-profit why are you violating anti-trust policy? It must be to help the community.

Heather has a crazy hard test today and also has to be the anesthesiologist (not sure I spelled that right) for a surgery today on a dog. Good luck, Heather! Take good care of that dog!

I just came across some random thing on the web that helped to inform me that while the median and average incomes in certain neighborhoods in both Seattle and Chicago are comparable to those in my current neighborhood (Beacon Hill) the housing costs are approximately 50% of those in Boston. Oops.

Keep it up Boston, and I might have to leave you one day.

Sorry, this is really f-ing funny. I would like to point out that I don't think everyone in the south is an ignorant asshole, so I would like to think of this as just being directed to those who are. Just as people are making the northeast one big lump of "liberal elite", turnabout is fair play.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to stop shopping at WalMart. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.

Funny. I don't even think it's a joke.

Here is a fun way to find out. Good luck at your annual review! Ha ha.

Hey guess what, Newton? It's too expensive for me to deal with the fact that your city is dumping raw sewage into the Charles. It's an affront to my humanity. So stop bitching and clean it up.

Learn more about how repulsive the Charles River is from this guy who's crazy or stupid enough to swim the whole length of it. Hopefully he'll be alive for more than a few days after he's done.

At least that's supposed to be the case. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if we found out not that "democracy works" but "cheating works" and that Bush (or Bush supporters) stole two elections?

Does anyone know how hard it is to move to France? Or maybe Japan? Sweden?

SIGH.

I'm sorry you found out that you have breast cancer the day after your husband wasn't elected vice president. I hope you'll be OK. That's quite a fucking week.

Should we maybe have some other country that's better at voting supervise our process? Seriously, did you know that 70% of Ohio is using the same voting system that caused allt he problems in Florida last time?

It's not official yet but it's not looking good for Kerry. I heard someone saying this morning that some idiot on TV said that Bush beating Kerry was "The WalMart Nation beating the Starbucks Nation".

Well, congratulations WalMart Nation. Enjoy losing your job and living on the street. Morons.

This is my favorite part:

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

Super duper.

Are people actually debating something about the fact that a teacher in Newton assigns a 15-page paper for seniors? Oh, sorry, a paper that could be "up to" 15 pages? Let's remember that these papers are probably double-spaced with a 1-inch margin at least... ie: it's not really all that much writing. I'm pretty sure I had to write a couple of papers like this in school and it wasn't the end of the world. These kids probably write 15-page emails to their friends. I really don't get what the big deal is. Certainly you should be capable of writing a 15-page paper on something that you research for a year or a semester. You should be able to write something a lot longer than that.

Give me a break, people.

It is totally illegal that Rod Stewart has the number 1 pop album this week. This is what Rob Reed says:

"People do not know how to spend their money. Give it to me. I'll spend it for you."

Rob got a lovely mailing from this moron today. He would like us to know that he thinks that no child should ever be confused by the idea of same-sex marriage and so therefore there shouldn't be any same-sex marriage. There is a very stupid cartoon on the front of it that looks like it was made by a ten year old with scissors cutting and pasting. His two main problems apparently are that:

1. Teachers will be mandated to teach from kindergarten on that homosexual relationships are an equal alternative to marriage.

2. Religious institutions will be limited in their freedom to speak out against certain ethical issues and to govern themselves

Then he wants to point out that he wants to help us by "taking back our right to vote on marriage to protect our children", in addition to also being in favor of charter schools, term limits and lower taxes.

Wow, what an agenda. He is protecting our children from being confused and he is also in favor of charter schools which I think are a horrible idea since we need to fix the schools we already have, and then he wants term limits - on who? He doesn't tell me. And he wants "lower taxes". For who? How much lower? How are you going to make up the difference? What programs lose money? Not charter schools, that's for sure!

Yep, he really bowled me over. I don't even have the energy to go into all the reasons why this guy is just very very wrong.

Pretty funny stuff. The FCC sucks.

Pretty funny stuff.

Here is a really unfortunate story. I just heard on NPR something about some crazy sport in Afghanistan which I missed the name of but they likened it to a version of polo. Then described it, saying the riders (representing different warlords, by the way) flog their horses and each other, and that the goal is to carry a dead goat from one end of the field to the other. Nice. I think maybe this country has some deep-seated issues.

Check out the site that was spawned by a project in Rob's Comp 15 class at Tufts. Yes, he's a little over the top.

Seriously. First, go check out the wide variety of both sane and crazy comments here about the girl who died after being shot by a pepper spray ball from police at a riot near Fenway after the Sox won the pennant.

Now, please also note my earlier post on this subject, here. OK, now this is what I have to say - get ready, it's momentous.

People are stupid and crazy and they do stupid and crazy things. However, let's not get out of control here. Let's read up on our facts before we start calling the police murderers. Even from far away you coule plainly see on the news from the crowd scene in Kenmore square that night, that the crowd was completely out of control. I'm sure there were some people there who were not out of control, but there were an awful lot who were. People were starting fires, throwing all manner of things from trash cans to furniture to pieces of broken windows and signs and whatever else they could smash up all over the place - into other signs and buildings and people. There were fireworks being set off in the crowd by other people in the crowd. There were cops there in riot gear and I think they waited too long to break it up. However, all they seemed to do was push the crowd away and try to break them up. They apparently opted to use pepper spray and this girl that died was accidentally hurt by it. I'm sure that whatever method they were using to do it has been tested and carefully developed and isn't supposed to kill anybody but accidents happen, especially when there is a crowd of thousands that has turned into a crazy lunatic mob.

That having been said, now I'll make everyone mad by saying if you choose to go to Fenway and get drunk and then run around in the streets like an idiot, even if you're not destroying anything, then you made your bed and you get to lay in it. Sorry if that means you might get hurt. People need to get control of themselves. Don't be stupid, it's a bad idea.

Now after all this fuss, if one single person participates in any crazy street rioting surrounding the World Series then I don't want to see it on the news or hear one complaint if someone gets hurt or even killed. You know it will happen anyway because people are so astoundingly stupid.

Don't come crying to me. I hope next time the cops have their billy clubs out.

Check it out.

Don't be sad that you're 30. Just think of it as one year closer to being done with school! Hey, you're closer to being 18 than you are to being 45. I'm just giving you a hard time, 30 isn't old by any stretch. You can call yourself old when you're about 75.

Have a happy birthday! Do something fun! Eat cake and ice cream!

Oh, hooray. I can see why your team that you love so much winning the pennant and finally going to the world series would be cause for you to stumble out into the streets in a crazed mob and start destroying everything. That makes perfect sense to me. Man, I love Boston so much! Let's go wreck up the place! I don't know what the police were waiting for. I don't want to see them gently ushering these idiots away from Kenmore Square, I want to see teargas and billy clubs. Seriously, show me a little police brutality. I'm disappointed.

It's also interesting how I can find very little in the news about this, as if it were no big deal. It looked like a big deal to me when people were throwing furniture through windows, tearing down signs outside of businesses, setting fires in the street and shooting off fireworks into the crowd. I guess I must be wrong.

Not that I'm a fan of the Yankees' fans throwing crap onto the field either, by the way. I just wish people weren't such idiots about sports. Well, I guess I just wish people weren't such idiots period.

I guess Rob had it right. People really are just gorillas who wear clothes and watch TV.

Ha ha. I ask because I have spontaneously managed to fit in size 10 pants again, like in the olden days of early high school. Maybe it's the lower cut waists, I don't know. Maybe someone gets to the store before me and cuts out all the 12 tags and replaces them with 10s. I don't really think that because also all my size 12 pants that I've had for ages are too big now. Anyway, what did I do to accomplish this amazing feat? I ate badly and didn't exercise.

For more on my plan for better health, click below.

Read the rest

I'm not entirely sure yet how I feel about that idea. I guess it's kind of cool because Massachusetts is his state and obviously Boston is the center of politics here, and Copley Square is certainly a good location. However, of course, I have to point out that I tend to have issues with "events" being held at the public library. I won't go into that too much at the moment but will just say that since it's a public library, nobody should be able to book it for private events, especially not during hours when the library is normally open to the public. So you'd think a night-time event would be OK but the more I think about that it's not true. The library is open till 9pm most nights of the week and you know that because of security, etc., the whole day and maybe the day before Copley Square is going to be a mess so I guess now I'm back to having a problem with it.

Well, I guess we'll see what Menino says. It isn't definite yet.

Seriously. I've said it before and here is someone else saying it. I don't think I'm a disorganized person but some stuff about this article rings a bell with me. I don't want the stuff but when I go through the stuff and try to get rid of it I don't know how to get rid of it. I think I need this, I need that, so-and-so gave me that, if we throw this out we'll just buy another... etc. It's really a sad state of affairs. Of course our problem is further complicated by the fact that our apartment is so small now and has so little storage space. I really do just wish someone would come in and take care of it for me and I wouldn't have to look at it. I bet I wouldn't miss anything in about 80% of the boxes we still haven't unpacked from our move. I also wish we had more money. I would just pay my ultra-organized friend Miss Amy Jo to come and organize me. She would help anyway now but I'd feel better if I could pay her and then run away and not be involved. SIGH.

I found these a while ago and might have posted about them to my website but I think it was my old site so I had to re-post this link again. I like them a lot.

I want these too! They're really cool! But get them for Heather first, since it's almost her birthday.

Ok, one more thing... these shoes are totally cute and more polished looking than sneaks. I'd love a pair in every color! Dorky but true. I really like them. But get them for Heather first. ;)

Yarn-crafters of the world - don't pay BR $58 for this, make it yourself! I already wanted to make one but now I really think I need to in order to prove I can. SIGH.

One of the guys in this band bought our laptop from us in the spring and I really like the songs on their website. What do you think? If you like it, I think you can find them on iTunes.

This might seem obvious. But the reason I am pointing out that the US couldn't join the European Union isn't a geographical one. The EU doesn't let any nation join that has the death penalty on the books. I'm listening to a story about Turkey's efforts to join the EU on NPR and they had to abolish the death penalty before they would be seriously considered.

Way to go, USA.