Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Poor poor Princess. At least you are in your proper attire.

This is my cousins' dog and she puts up with many outfits and other forms of torture.

Rob has very thoughtfully analyzed an article in Wired this month - an interview with the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt.

The interview takes a creepy turn toward the end. Read what Rob has to say about it.

I thought maybe it would be a good idea to dye my hair a lighter brown since it's got so much grey in it that when the roots grow in they're very noticeable and because I worry that at some point it will have so much grey that I won't be able to dye it a dark color as it will turn green or blue or purple or something.

But, too bad for me my hair turns orange-y when I use lighter browns, plus the roots don't look any better then because the part that isn't grey is so much darker than the dyed hair.

I know, you are very very sad for me.

Anyway, I succumbed to dark brown and my hair is now "Natural Dark Brown". The unfortunate part is it dyes my scalp as well. I'll have to try to handle that so I don't look like I colored on my scalp with a sharpie tomorrow when I go to work.

Update: I had to strategically part my hair and can't wear a ponytail today. How do the professionals do it? Melissa will have to tell me. I do know how to keep it off my face, with cold cream or something similar, but I didn't think I should put that on my actual scalp where I assumed it would get on my hair and interfere with the process.

No, no, no, NPR.

There's a show on where they're talking about movies that make men cry and I think it was the host of the show just said her husband always gets choked up at the part in The Sound of Music when Captain Von Trapp is singing Edelweiss and he gets choked up because he thinks he's going to have to go join the Navy for the Third Reich and leave his family.

Come on! You've watched the movie enough times to know what makes your husband cry "every time" but you don't even know what's going on! He's not crying about leaving his family, he already knows he's escaping with them shortly, not joining the Nazi navy. He's crying about leaving his country that he loves so much.

Edelweiss is a love song about Austria. He's sad because he has to leave Austria with his family in order to keep them safe.

I'm disappointed, NPR. As I'm sure Clementine will be as well when she reads this.

OK, it's not a flying car, but check out the video that goes along with this story. Dude, for real, it's nuts!

If you're actually someone who designs your own websites and not a cheater piggy-backer like me, getting all that for free from my poor abused boyfriend, then use something decent like one of the programs Rob talks about here, instead of typing every bit of code from scratch like a crazy person.

Even I know better than to do that.

Take a look at the story Heather posted about here.

Did I miss the part where we were taken over by a communist dictator? I think so. What the fuck, people, seriously.

It's not against the law to be rude, offensive, or insensitive. I guess you could say yes, anyone could be fired for any reason, at least in Massachusetts it's employment at will and I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to me a little ridiculous if colleges are going to start constraining everyone's behavior so much. Let's not be so reactionary, people. Get your heads out of your asses.

Put this at the top of the list of Unnecessary Items People Buy For Their Pets.

You know folks, human babies get to ride in these because they're not capable of walking. You might notice that 8 year old kids aren't riding around in strollers.

That's all.

I was thinking how the contents of our refrigerator are kind of funny last night so I thought I'd post them.

• Half full gallon of skim milk
• A bottle of pasta sauce, mostly gone
• Diet Dr. Pepper
• Grated sheep's milk romano cheese that Rob hates
• Flour tortillas
• A tiny pat of butter on a plate with saran wrap over it (we don't have a butter dish)
• A bowl of leftover spaghetti
• 2 bartlett pears
• 1 grapefruit
• 1/2 head of iceberg lettuce
• Various condiments
• 16 cupcakes

There would have been 15 cupcakes if I had time to eat one for breakfast but instead I was cleaning up Billy's pee in the livingroom. Thanks, Billy!

I love Milk Street Cafe's spinach and strawberry salad, served with balsamic dressing. To an unreasonable degree. Now I know that they did not invent this concept, that I am perfectly capable of making one myself, etc. But I love that they make it, that people in my office order it for meetings, and that there are always leftovers (the only explanation being everyone in the meeting must be insane).

I would happily eat way more of this than any of the following, all of which are major vices of mine:

1. Oreos
2. Cheetos (or generic equivalent, puffy or crunchy)
3. Pringles
4. French fries
5. Fried dough
6. Turkey Hill Choco Mint Chip ice cream (a newly discovered vice - so excellent, the chips are tiny and melt in your mouth, not giant hard crunchy chunks like other brands)

So thank you, Milk Street Cafe. May you live a long and prosperous life and never stop serving this salad. Now I'm off to get my second giant heaping plate of salad leftovers. (You can't yell at me! It's salad! With fruit!)

Apparently some people are complaining that it is so hard to get guns in this country that the students who were killed at Virginia Tech on Monday were left defenseless, and that if guns were easier to get then they could have all had their own guns and fired back.

Does it not occur to said people that not everyone wants to carry a gun? Or, in fact, that there's a problem with the theory that our society is so fucked up that everyone should constantly be armed with loaded guns because at any second someone could open fire in a random place like a school or office and it would really be best if you were constantly prepared for assault?

Seriously, whatever you think about the right to bear arms, I have a problem with the idea that it would have been best if every student on campus was walking around with a gun 24-7.

Yesterday might have been WTF Wednesday but I'd like to christen today Shut-the-fuck-up Thursday. And I'd like these people to shut the fuck up.

Everyone is pissing me the fuck off today. (OK, not everyone. Like probably not you, dear reader.)

Maybe I should stop reading the news on this site, everything is very upsetting so far today.

This one just pisses me off because it's awful. Dude, horses don't need the fucking Rolling Stones' concert stage a few meters from them. That's retarded. Anyone with a brain can understand why that is not a good idea. I don't see how it could possibly not be cruel. Animals tend to be sensitive about noise, yes? How about blaring deafening speakers at a concert?

Good idea morons.

Dear crazy people in the Phillipines:

If you are going to rip open and then whip your backs until they are a bloody mess, maybe you should not share blades.

I would also like to encourage you to rethink your religion and indeed, your entire world view.

Are you aware that crucifixion is/was generally used as a way to kill people? Just checking. If you are trying to kill yourself there are simpler ways to accomplish it. And less painful. And less likely to first involve contracting rabies.

And lastly, I would like to let you know that as you seem very concerned with what Jesus thinks of you, I'm pretty sure that if he were somehow aware of you, you'd be making him cry (and mostly for your stupidity, not your suffering). So unless that was your goal, please stop.

Sincerely yours,
Jenn

So, reason a million that I need to get going on reading Kurt Vonnegut, check out what Rob Reed has to say. I really do have to blame my crappy high school in Ohio. Nobody I knew (there, I mean) was reading Vonnegut that I'm aware of, nobody recommended him to me, etc. Now I know other folks, certain of which are big readers, who have of course. Unfortunately for me, some of them were living on another continent and didn't clue me in.

Anyway, I really feel like a moron for being so clueless and I'm ordering my first book today from Amazon (it's half price there kids, so I couldn't make myself buy it in a store over the weekend.)

Really, do I have to wait for Spiderman 3? Will there be nothing good before that? The current selection is disappointing, Hollywood.

This is a clean little corner of the apartment, just our bags sitting on the dining table in the livingroom. This was first posted March 24, 2007.

We just got tomorrow surprise off from work! Typically the office is open on Patriots Day but the owners decided to close tomorrow due to a combination of concerns about traffic from the marathon and the weather.

Or just because they felt like it.

OK by me!

I'm an idiot who's never read a Kurt Vonnegut book. In the wake of his death I have resolved to read one soon, and I blame my ignorance entirely on the fact that I went to high school in Ohio.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
- Kurt Vonnegut

This is so ridiculous that if the guy didn't have a picture I'd almost have to think he was making it up, or exaggerating at least a little.

But no, that's a T bus driver writing out a check while driving a bus.

Awesome.

Warning: Spoilers if you haven't seen the end of the current season.

So my good friend Sheilagh sent me a link to this story on VH1 about Battlestar Galactica, which explains some things - sort of - for anyone who was wondering.

For one thing, Starbuck (or Starsuck as Sheilagh calls her) really isn't dead, and Apollo isn't hallucinating.

The only thing that makes me sad is the next season doesn't start for almost a year - no new episodes till 2008. Sucky.

But they're making a couple of extra episodes in the meantime and putting them on as a TV movie, revolving around Battlestar Pegasus. Hopefully that will be good.

Know what I love a lot? Paper Source. If I could, I'd buy some of just about everything in this store and then while away all my time (because in this imaginary world where I could afford to buy everything in the store, I also don't have to work or do my own laundry or make my own dinner) making things with paper and stamps and markers and scissors and fancy paper cutters. I would print professional looking invitations to invite my friend Clementine to have coffee with me.

I would divide my time somewhat evenly between making pretty things out of paper, knitting pretty things, and watching fun TV and movies. I would have a rocking chair and a giant couch. Any pets would be non-shedding. Hmmm, my fantasy world is getting very detailed, let me cut myself off here.

The point was supposed to be that I love Paper Source.

Please, parents, make sure your sons know how to do laundry. Before they go to college. Before they live on their on in an apartment in a city.

Because here's a scene I just witnessed this weekend at the neighborhood laundromat - a mom teaching - rather, trying to teach - her obviously very disinterested adult son in his ridiculous preppy J.Crew-esque canvas belt with turtles or something on it how to do laundry.

I mean really, it should have been embarassing or both of them.

Honestly, I've been doing my own laundry since I was like 10 and the same for my brothers. Not that my mom or dad wouldn't sometimes do laundry including ours but basically it was everyone's responsibility to make sure they had enough clean clothes so if you needed to do your own wash, you just did.

Can't you, in fact, figure out how to do it yourself without instruction from your mom based on, I don't know, the instructions on the labels in the clothes themselves? Or TV? Or maybe seeing a friend do it? Or something?

I don't know the story behind why this got made, but it's a music video of Alanis Morissette performing "My Humps".

Basically you just need to watch it. With sound.

Well Rob was too slow, so I'm stealing his quote from last week's episode.

We need to learn not to profile one race of people, because actually, most of the world hates us.
- Kyle