Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Suddenly quite the little furor over my recent post about Floyd Landis being stripped of his Tour de France 2006 title. Check it out.

Wow, the rich and famous really know how to put together excellent lives for themselves.

What in the world is wrong with crazy-ass Britney Spears?

I don't care really, I'm just amazed that people who have so much can make such problems for themselves. I mean, she wasn't always a gazillionaire, right? Did she know how to act like a normal human being before? Because this behavior is crack-whore material for real. If she didn't have a million keepers she would have already landed in jail or had her kids taken away or both.

For pete's sake, get it together. Your money can buy you all the help you need, stupid.

So Billy and I were just outside and we made the mistake of walking past Phillips Street park, where there was, of course, some idiot with his dog off-leash. We kept walking because in case you're new to this blog, Billy doesn't do so hot with strange dogs. He's pretty snippy when he's out on his leash, though he's typically perfectly happy to meet other dogs when he's at home.

Of course, as soon as the guy's dog sees us he starts heading over, and not slowly. He was a big dog and he was tearing towards us, looking pretty aggressive. I think he was a friendly dog who just wanted to say hi, but regardless, it was not OK. The guy immediately starts yelling at him to stop and come back, which the dog totally ignores, and heads straight to us. The only reason the dog didn't get bitten by Billy is because I knocked Billy off his feet pulling him away.

Not cool. My dog is 12 years old and minding his own business. There's no reason he should be knocked over by me, his owner, trying to save your out-of-control dog from getting bitten just because you're too much of a fucking asshole to show some common sense, common decency, and oh, yeah, maybe follow the law.

It's not optional if you think your dog is nice, or if you're under the false impression that you can control him/her under every possible circumstance. If you're in the city of Boston, and your dog is outside, it's on a leash. Period.

I really wish that I was better at saying what I think in person because I should have yelled at the guy but instead just headed away quickly as he uselessly scolded his dog with something like, "Bad dog, I told you to stay."

Fuck you.

Here's some stuff that brought people to my site recently:

1. smart parrot dies
2. ladies underwear photographs
3. michael jozwik chicago (Hey Joz! One of us must be famous!)
4. how to stop the wind chime noise
5. 80's socks

So Floyd Landis has officially lost his title as the Tour de France winner from last year, unless he appeals the decision... which, knowing the history of other shady "innocents" like Tyler Hamilton, I'm guessing he will.

Hey, here's a little notice to cyclists everywhere: stop doping, you're going to get caught, assholes. You ruin the sport that you're supposed to care so much about, plus you look stupid and pathetic.

Uh-oh, 50, you might have to retire. Apparently Kanye's album is outselling yours.

Too bad you felt the need to say this in Rolling Stone:

I'm King Kong. Kanye is human. Humans run when they see King Kong, because they're scared.

But who really thinks you're going to retire?

Lisa: "Mom, you fuss over us way too much."

Marge: "Well enjoy it now, because when you're a grown-up you'll have to take care of yourself."

Homer: "MARGE! There's a spider near my car keys!"

Marge: "You did the right thing by coming to me."

Also, I think we're a little late to the game, but Rob and I just obsessed over this album yesterday:

The whole album is great. The songs are really catchy and they're all pretty hilarious. If you appreciate clever/funny lyrics (see the title of this post) you should really check her out.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

George Eliot

George Eliot was actually a woman. There's your trivia for the day.

So Major League Baseball took down Heather's movie.

Nice. Here's the message you get when you try to view her movie now:

"It's just an online article," he'll say, but still.

Good job Rob Reed!

Check out his article about working with Google Earth to map your digital photos so you can share them with other people, etc. It's really cool actually. He also wrote a second article about doing the same thing with Google Maps. I don't think that one is up yet.

Anyway, I think it's pretty cool.

Holy crap, what the hell is wrong with Courtney Love? Oh, wait, did I just answer my own question? This is Courtney Love we're talking about.

What???

This is a small street we pass on Beacon Hill most days on our walk to or from our apartment. I think it's Acorn Street.

For more of our photos, mostly taken by Rob Reed, visit the photo mapping project he posted related to an article he wrote.

The green symbols mark one photo. The red ones mean there are too many photos too close together to display them all. Zoom in more to see every mapped photo. Click on a symbol to see a little callout bubble with a thumbnail and info about the pic. From there you can get the full gallery of photos.

Now that Rob wrote the code to make all this functional we'd like to get all our photos up like this. It will be a little sad as to get anything international I'll have to scan photos from high school and college, but maybe this will inspire us to travel more, so our photo maps look less pathetic. :)

Alex the parrot, who I first learned about in 10th grade, died recently.

Alex's advanced language and recognition skills revolutionized the understanding of the avian brain.

Alex was super smart. He could identify shapes and colors and make connections people didn't realize birds were capable of. He learned colors separately from shapes and you could then tell him, for example, to pick the yellow triangle and he'd put both concepts together and get the right shape.

The cute little goodnight routine with the researcher they mention at the end gets me.

Here is just a short video I took while we were out on our water tour of Marblehead, Beverly, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Salem, etc.

Hey, in case you forgot, we totally suck.

Here is an excerpt from a very interesting book, The World Without Us, which I really want to read.

But the excerpt is disturbing. Apparently there's a giant vortex of garbage in the Pacific Ocean the size of a continent. Isn't that swell?

We're really doing a good job folks. We should give ourselves a pat on the back.

We had a fun outing in Marblehead on Saturday thanks to hostess Amy, semi-co-hostess Tara, and tour guide Jan.

Check out more photos here. Sadly I had our camera on a stupid setting so they're a little grainy. Dumb Jenn, dumb. But they're still fun. I also have a movie I need to put up.

What a fun afternoon! Thanks everyone!

I just saw a ridiculous commercial on TV asking people to please buy Jesus' love by sending them money to put a tacky gold plaque with your name on it on the wall of the Church of the Nativity.

Bonus: The Franciscan monks will pray for you if your name is on the wall. If it's not, apparently you can just to fuck yourself.

Check out all the really cool stuff Jenny has going on. Photos, graphic design stuff, etc.

I'm an asshole for not doing more stuff like this myself as well. I was an art major you know. Well, most of you probably do know that since about 6 people read this and you all know me in real life. But I'm just saying.

I need to make more time in my life for fun cool art stuff.

Hey, here's one recent project - I made the map-marking graphics for Rob's Google Maps and Google Earth scripts and article he was working on, soon to be published online.

Here is a Google Map of a small collection of our photos. You can double click to center and zoom in. You can use the controls in the upper left to zoom in or out as well and also shift the map. I made all the little graphics that mark where the photos are.

Also, if you're interested, if you click on one of the markers it shows you a thumbnail of the photo and you can click on a link there to get to the whole gallery.

Just a couple of funny pics of my honorary niece, Hester.

First of all, this is her new favorite face to make, apparently. I think it's hysterical. She's not upset or crying, she's just making faces for the camera.

Second, apparently Hester wasn't impressed with the new experience of cooked carrots. I don't blame her, though I don't want to discourage a taste for healthy foods. I find cooked carrots gross too. I hope she will like raw carrots when she gets the choppers for them!

Last, here is Hester on her first pony ride. I am hoping she will develop the deep and abiding love for all things equine that many little girls have. Much to Clementine's horror and my glee.

Oops! Not so smart, kiddos. Maybe next time you should just send an email or something.

And Whoopi Dumbass joins the fray.

My favorite part is this quote:

"It's like cockfighting in Puerto Rico," she said. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country."

First of all, did she forget to look up 'indicative' in the dictionary? Because I'm pretty sure you can't say 'indicative to'. At least not if you're trying to communicate in english.

Secondly, there are lots of things that might be, to put it in terms Whoopi will understand, 'indicative to' a part of the country, but that's not an excuse.

Here are some examples:

1. Murder, in Baltimore
2. Illiteracy, in Detroit
3. Gun deaths, in the entire United States

I guess following Whoopi's logic, if you feel like murdering someone, go ahead and do it, just do it in Baltimore or if you're from Baltimore. If you can't read, that's OK as long as you live someplace like Detroit or Mississippi. Don't even bother trying to teach those people to read. And, if you'd like to shoot someone, feel free to do it anywhere in these United States.

Whoopi, you're a fucking idiot, and you sound like one too.

You probably didn't think this post was going to be about actual sacrifices, did you?

I can't even really comment on this. Let's just say I'm glad I'm not flying to or from India anytime soon. I'm not sure I trust their repair methods.

People, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times:

Caution! Many visitors have been gored by buffalo!

When are you going to listen?

This is from our day trip to Rockport in August, 2007. This was originally posted August 11, 2007.