Enjablog

Well, in case anyone noticed, yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my domain. I started my blog some time around the end of February last year, but didn’t get around to claiming my name until Memorial Day weekend (which was also the start of my chocolate and tv hiatuses). And in celebration of this special occasion, my domain expired. Wooo!! Hehe. But it’s ok. My big brother fixed it while he was home this weekend. So… my weekend:

Friday — Moved furniture around at work. ‘Twas very exciting, I assure you. Got home in time to take a nap, but never got around to it because I was trying to build up anger for that rant I wrote. It took way longer than the one I wrote on Saturday because I wasn’t really angry about it. But oh well. Whatever. Went over to hang out at the castle and await the return of brother#2. Hung out for a bit and did the family thing. Came home and got some reading in.

Saturday — Woke up completely disoriented because I had some wacky dream and I couldn’t figure out what day it was when I woke up. Breakfast at the castle and did the family thing again. Back home for some loafing around. Then out with my boy. Went to dinner with him and the IntwineBoys. The event of the night was watching Tom attempt to eat 25 gulab jamin and Alok eat 3 entrees and 4 orders of bread. They both came close, but they’re going to have to train a little harder to accomplish these feats. After that, headed over with ITP and SPJ to Dave&Busters for some exciting games of shuffleboard. Granted, SPJ spent most of the evening there trolling for treasures, but whatever. Met up with the HOY people there. After that, the boys went back to work and I headed over to Silver Diner with the remains of the HOY crew.

Sunday — BBQ day. Ate lots of food, played lots of video games, and that was about the extent of it. Good turnout. The sibs, roommates, hetero-lifemates, the drunken duo, Roy, ITP, SPJ, H, Eep, the drunken wonder, Max… Probably ended up with around 16 or so people by the end of the evening.

Monday — Breakfast at the castle again. Family doober to see the brother off. Back home… and off to investigate beds in a bit. Probably will try to get around to finish this book too. Some day… :) -J.

So there’s this guy… out in CA who is against this series of boys are stupid products. (Thanks to BFF for bringing this to my attention.) And to be honest, I think he’s right to say something. I think Dave Barry wrote an article a few years ago about the anti-boy jokes going around, but I can’t seem to find it on the internet… maybe it was that long ago. Or maybe someone else wrote it and I’m remembering wrong. Anyway, here was BFF’s argument (Disclaimer: transiently anti-boy):

after all this objectification of women, all those shirts with playboy and co-ed naked sports and they get mad over this? turnabout is fair play, stupid boys. i can see their point, but still, it was a joke. not like they don’t have worse things with women out there on them.

And didn’t we all grow up learning that two wrongs don’t make a right? I think it’s unrealistic to expect that wearing shirts like this in retaliation to shirts that objectify women will make them see your side. Besides the fact that the person who designed these shirts and products was a guy.

I guess the point isn’t trying to get them to agree with you, it’s just to get back at them. But if you really want to get back at them, start a campaign. If people are truly offended by these co-ed naked shirts, shouldn’t someone have started a campaign years ago? Stores/merchindisers/whoever are all a bunch of lemmings. You even suggest that anyone might be offended by something and it’ll be pulled off the shelves so fast, you won’t even have time to reconsider what you were whining about.

Starting with A&F and their offensive chinese people shirts, to these boys are stupid shirts, and even the co-ed naked shirts… if people complain, they will go away. People are so scared of losing business and getting bad publicity, they’ll go to extremes to make nice with everyone. Get a spine. Sure, if you sell something I don’t like, I’m not going to go to your store. But if you were ordering this product before, you probably had some kind of demand for that product. Now all of a sudden, you’re not going to sell these products because other people, who probably didn’t shop at your store before, don’t like what you’re selling? That just doesn’t sound like good business practices. If you’re the one store remaining that sells these shirts, that means everyone who wants one is going to come buy them from you.

Wow, I seem to have drifted really far from my point. To address the message of the shirts, it’s a mean thing to say. That dude has every right to complain if he is offended by it and the stores have every right to not do anything about it. The point isn’t that he’s taking away girls’ revenge on boys for all the mean things they’ve said, he’s just standing up for boys.

So, girls, if you don’t like the things being said on shirts about you or whatever else you may be offended by, stand up for yourself and say something about it. Passive aggressive smear campaigns aren’t going to help them see that they’re wrong. If boys really are stupid, they’ll never figure out what you’re getting at anyway. ;)

This whole deal with jokes about women belonging in the kitchen and boys being stupid… They’re going to go on the shelf with the racist and legless dog jokes (I was going to say dead baby jokes, but really… those just aren’t ever funny. I don’t know why new ones keep getting made up.). None of it’s funny, except in a room with close friends, where everyone knows you’re just kidding and you can still be friends sharing ice cream and cookies later. :) -J.

Topic of the Day: The Objectification of Women. More specifically, as it pertains to body image and the unrealistic standards set by the media and upheld by society. Brought to you by the letters BFF and the number -2 (as in the size the women on tv wear. And yes, boys, women’s clothing does come in negative sizes. But that is another rant entirely.)

Anyway, this was all brought on by BFF’s rant about girls at the gym calling Megan Mullaly fat. So, sure TV is fake and in TV world everyone is pretty, thin, and happy with perfect skin and perfect teeth. That is the difference between TV and reality. Ok, not really. But there is a disproportionate number of underweight women being televised vs. the average obese American. I specifically mention women here and not just generic people because I believe that the women shown have more abnormal body types than the men that are typically shown.

According to a diet site, the average American woman in 2004 is a size 14 (up from the size 8 of yesterdecade). You would be hardpressed to find even a size 8 woman on TV these days. Men, on the other hand, are only up from 40 regulars to about 43s, with a higher occurrence of pot bellies. But enough with the stats.

What is with these girls who complain that they’re fat when they’re not? Then when they see someone else, instead of perpetuating a realistic image of what healthy women are supposed to look like, they point fingers and call a normal woman fat just because she doesn’t look anorexic like the other women on the dumbbox. Keep in mind that this was a 45-year-old woman who is probably about a size 8.

I know I can’t blame this all on the media, since there’s obvious a supply/demand thing going on. But I’ve heard enough guys make comments about the sickly thin women on tv to wonder where the demand is coming from. There’s such a big difference between anorexic ballerina and attractive thin.

I’m not trying to play the BMI game here, but there are some unhealthily underweight women being glorified, whether it be in magazines, television, or movies. And then people wonder why there is such an increase in nervosas of late, especially among teenage girls. Gee, I wonder. Where are the role models? Where are the normal people? Humans copy each other. Monkey see, monkey do. They learn by observation. Teenagers see something that’s cool and then trendify it.

Being unhealthily thin is now the goal that so many girls strive for. Where do you think they get it from? Blame society. Blame the media. Blame Canada. Whatever. The whining stops here. There is no fat. There is healthy or unhealthy. Sumo wrestlers are probably healthier than a lot of people in this country.

Fat or not, there are so many unhealthy people milling about. Get a clue. Being like the people on tv does not make you cool. Looking like a model does not make you popular. Being popular does not make you happy. Making fun of other people does not change the fact that you’re a loser. Don’t be stupid, stupid! -j.

LOTD from Rock Jas (RWB? PBG? I don’t remember what it was agreed that I was going to call him. I think I’m giving up on this 3-letter naming system soon. Or else I’m going to have to draft up a legend for myself and any new readers that might happen past…): “Mission Nothing Accomplished; Defeat Bush in ‘04.

In unrelated news, Jon Stewert was the commencement speaker for W&M:
“We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.”

QOTD: “They’re not dumb for girls… they’re dumb for engineers.” -Nothing

I’ve decided that I need to be angrier. I want to rant more about unimportant things. If you have any suggestions for me, please leave a cookie. Thanks! :) -J.

More info on the article Bracken posted:

Student poets victimised for anti-war stance
NEW MEXICO, USA — On March 17, the day of US President George Bush’s televised announcement of the imminent US military attack on Iraq, Green Left Weekly writer Bill Nevins was suspended from his teaching job at Rio Rancho New Mexico public high school. The student Poetry Slam Team/Write Club, which Nevins organises and sponsors, was also barred from performing their outspoken words in public.

This took place after an anti-war poem written by a Rio Rancho New Mexico poetry team member read out a poem over the in-school closed circuit TV system. Following the reading, the student’s parent (also a teacher at the school) was ordered by an assistant principal to go home and search the student’s room for a print copy of the poem. The parent declined to do so. All members of the poetry team were individually interrogated by the school administration.

The charge against Nevins is that he permitted students to perform at public poetry readings without approved “field trip” forms being on file. Nevins is fighting the suspension with the strong support of the New Mexico teachers’ union.

The Slam Team/Write Club has achieved local fame for the courageous way that multicultural youth from the school and the community had put their words of anger and protest into fine-crafted poetry. They have delivered these bursts of truth on local television, in print and at frequent poetry open mikes throughout central New Mexico.

The team was planning to appear at the Taos State Wide Youth Poetry Slam on March 21 but was told by the Rio Rancho High School administration on March 17 that they may be barred from going there by the school. Several students vowed to go to Taos anyway and to speak out there against repression in the USA, denial of free speech at their school and the suspension of Nevins.

GLW readers are asked to send protest letters to New Mexico governor Bill Richardson from his web site at http://www.governor.state.nm.us.

Below is the poem that was read out:

Revolution X
by Courtney a student at Rio Rancho High School

Bush said no child would be left behind
And yet kids from inner-city schools
Work on Central Avenue
Jingling cans that read
Please sir, may I have some more?
They hand out diplomas like toilet paper
And lower school standards
Because
Underpaid, unrespected teachers
Are afraid of losing their jobs
Funded by the standardised tests
That shows our competency
When I’m in detox.
This is the Land of the Free …
Where the statute of limitations for rape is only five damn years!
And immigrants can’t run for President.
Where Muslims are hunted because
Some suicidal men decided they didn’t like
Our arrogant bid for modern imperialism.
This is the Land of the Free …
You drive by a car whose
Bumper screams
God bless America!
Well, you can scratch out the B
And make it Godless
Because God left this country a long time ago.
The founding fathers made this nation
On a dream and now
Freedom of Speech
Lets Nazis burn crosses, but
Calls police to
Gay pride parades.
We somehow
Can afford war with Iraq
But we can’t afford to pay the teachers
Who educate the young who hold the guns
Against the “Axis of Evil”
Land of the Free …
This is the land
If you’re politically assertive
They call you a traitor and
Damn you to ostracism.
Say good-bye to Johnny Walker Lindh
And his family.
Bye Bye.
American Pie.
So maybe
My ideas about this nation
Don’t resolve around perfection
But at least I know
Education is more important
Than money.
Land of the Free . . .
If this was utopia
We’d have to see each other naked
Before we got married
But instead, we see each other naked all the time
Because the government has my social security number
And the name of my dog!
And then we make babies,
But don’t worry, they won’t be left behind
And they grow up saying
God bless America!
But they don’t know who Bush is
Because they never learned the Presidents.
And they will ride the ship Amistad
To our dreamland shores
Bearing the same shackles as us.
I’m here to say that
Generation X
Is pissed and we are taking over,
Ripping down the American illusion of perfection
We are the future generation
I have my qualifications
I know it looks like Angel Soft paper,
But don’t worry
It’s a diploma
Do I look qualified?
You can take our toilet paper,
But you can’t take our Revolution.

Man, Kurt Vonnegut is such a better ranter than me:

“If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.”

“I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.”

S(pam)OTD: “If by some misunderstanding we sent this email, click reply and type ‘take away’ in the subject line.”

Really? If by some misunderstanding we sent this email? I’m pretty sure you meant to send it. Maybe you didn’t mean to send it to me? Except for the part where you bought my information and then pasted it into the spam to send to me. Yeah. Misunderstand this, jerk.

Weather reports should be objective, or at least as objective as reasonably possible, without including descriptions such as “nice,” “terrible,” and “looks ok.” That tells me nothing. I want to know the chance of precipitation, relative humidity, temperatures, and cold or warm fronts moving into the area. I don’t care if you think it’s going to be nice out. What you think is nice is not going to be the same as mine, considering you like going outside when it’s 92 degrees and that big yellow thing is out. Stupid radio people. I want useful information and I want it now. It’s like if traffic reports were to say that there were some accidents in DC today. Thanks for the help, jackhole. Specific, objective information. Useful information.

Also… I understand that the president has a stressful job and all… but shouldn’t he be concerned about the state of the country/international relations/Afghanistan/Iraq/economy/unemployment/environment/healthcare/anything and not going on yet another vacation and falling off his mountain bike? I’ve heard people defending him, saying that driving on gravel or dirt roads can be treacherous, so it’s not too unexpected to take a spill when on a bike. That’s not my point! I don’t care if Bush is a klutz. I care that he is useless: “Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.” -J.

EDIT:
Just came across this comparison of presidential vacation days:
GW Bush - 250 days as of August 2003 (27%)
George Bush Sr. - 543 days
Ronald Reagan - 335 days during his eight years in office
Jimmy Carter - 79 days
Bill Clinton - 152 days during his two terms

Now, that’s 250 as of August 2003 and 500 as of April 2004… Not that I disagree that Bush isn’t really doing his job or anything, but there’s something wrong with the numbers here. Yahoo sites Washington Post who sites CBS News in both their articles. Don’t have any raw data on those numbers though. 250 is still pretty high though. Compare that to the average american who gets two weeks vacation per year. That’s 10 days. 40 over 4 years. Sure, he, uh, “earns” his vacation time, but 6 times average citizens? 12? His 4 years aren’t even up yet.

A robot strike at UW-Madison:

Ok, so I’ve been meaning to stop posting these silly quizzes and stuff, but this one actually made me laugh out loud at my computer. Literally. In my room and I’m pointing and laughing at my monitor. This is so true:

You’re Rubik’s Cube!! You may think you’re
popular, but you’re actually extremely
annoying. Seriously.

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Is it just me, or is it inappropriate and just plain lame that gyms are the new singles bar? I mean, I joined a gym because I felt unhealthy and I wanted to kick people. Is that so wrong? Now, I go and I leave with this layer of filth and skeeze that I can’t wash off. I mean, to be fair, about every third time I go to the gym, I *don’t* have a skeezy guy hit on me. But the rest of the time, come on dude. Not that I’m all that and a bag of kettle corn or anything, but come on. I don’t *look* desperate. Right? Right..? If you have a potbelly, you’re over twice my age, your children are my age, you don’t have enough intelligence to start a non-creepy conversation with me, and I tell you I’m not interested and you should leave me alone, well, hm… Maybe YOU SHOULD LEAVE ME ALONE. I’m not interested. If you’re going to be in the pool, learn some pool etiquette.

If you’re not going to swim, get out of the lane.
It is not nice to take up the whole lane.
It is not nice to block the wall when someone is trying to turn around and continue swimming; you might be taking a break, but that should not interfere with my workout.
Blocking the wall is *not* an appropriate way to get my attention SO YOU CAN HIT ON ME.
If you’re going to swim slower than the person who is sharing a lane with you, let them pass. Please? Pretty please? I mean, I know I’m not an especially fast swimmer, but compared to these people just hanging out in the pool being lazy… GRRRR!! The fact that I’m moving at all means that I’m swimming faster than most of these people. Camping out in a lane is rude!

Maybe those pool guys are just especially skeezy though. The rest of the gym isn’t so bad. Classes … are rescheduled seemingly constantly. They canceled the kickboxing class at the skeezy gym I normally go to, but there’s another location a little farther in the opposite direction and they have classes twice a week. Tried to go last Thursday, but the class was full when I got there. I’ll try to get there earlier next week. Even if I don’t make it on Tuesday though, I get to kick people on Thursday no matter what. Self-defense night. :) Oh and the gym is all fancy with their card scanner turnstiles and stuff, so I don’t even have to talk to anyone when I’m there. *Anyone.* And the people there are much, much less skeezy. Unfortunately, they don’t have a pool over there, but at least I can go hang out there without having to worry about creeps. Almost everyone had headphones in and were as uninterested in talking to strangers as I was. Woo! :) -j.

Spent yesterday evening out livin’ it up with the Intwine boys and attachments. Congrats to them for making it through their second year and almost tripling the number of people in the company. :) Yay! Wooo! Dinner was in Georgetown overlooking the waterfront. Didn’t get a chance to go out and get a good look at the boats milling about, but saw a couple of them from the window. :) Anyway, spent the evening at the doober. They gave out presents! Fudge from the fudge guy in the town center. For everyone except me, that is… Cookies! :) They know me so well. Granted, SPJ and ITP together didn’t know if I like peanuts or coconut… But they decided cookies were a safe bet. Smart boys they are. And by the end of the evening, I had ended up with a box of cookies and two boxes of fudge. I’m not quite sure how I managed that. But that’s ok.

Spent this morning/afternoon watching Gilmore Girls: The Complete First Season. Ok, so maybe not the whole first season today. But made some good progress through the second DVD. The rest of the afternoon was phone catchup and reading/nap time. Went over to HOY after I got up from my nap. Played some weird frog game with my sis. It was like golf on crack. I got a “frog-in-one” after landing in water, swimming to shore, jumping backwards to eat a fly, landing in the water and swimming in the wrong direction toward the start, getting picked up by a fish and brought back to shore the way i wanted to go, landing in a pterodactyl nest, getting picked up by the pterodactyl, who then proceeded to fly around collecting points, and then getting dropped into the hole. Like I said, weird game. Fun though. AND they gave me cookies. That they didn’t like, but whatever. Peanut-butter cookies with raspberry jelly on them. Cookies for me. :)

After that, went out to see Shrek 2 with ITP. Very worth seeing. Well, if you liked the first one. If not, then maybe you wouldn’t like this one either. Also, stay for the credits. There’s a doober that’s pretty amusing.

So, sitting down at dinner earlier this week, there are these guys at the table behind us talking about computer stuff (being dumb [and creepy] about it, but that’s beside the point). In any case, I was asked if I’m ever out somewhere, like a restaurant or something, and I overhear people having a conversation about designing boats and saying things that are incorrect. Whoa whoa… come again? Out and overhear a conversation about boats? Right or wrong, the only time I’ve had that happen is if a SNAME conference is in town. And even then, they’re probably people in our group who got separated and had to sit at a table across an aisle from us. Maybe I work in a kind of small field though. I mean, not unheard of small, but… relatively uncommon at the very least. So, no; that does not happen to me often. Or ever. :) -J.

Relief: What trees do in the spring.
Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife.
Seamstress: Describes 250 pounds in a size 6.
Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does.
Sudafed: Brought litigation against a government official.
Subdued: like a guy, like works on one of those, like, submarines, man!

Current book: Snow Crash

I guess while I’m blogging about blogs… I should put this one up– Google Blog

I know they’re just poking fun… but they mention the Creek: “Anyway, I’m excited the blog’s up. We’re going to post stuff here - regular bloggy things: What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson’s Creek character reminds us most of Eric.”

*giggle*