today’s "news"
April 11, 2007
I’m in Cleveland at my aunt’s house. This morning when I got up, she was watching the news and commented that it was all Larry Birkhead and Don Imus — they haven’t covered any political or world issues all morning. Mr. Intrepid Young Journalist, who has had various jobs involved in the production of this news (but none of which give him the authority to tell the network put Anna Nicole on hiatus), has also been frustrated by this. A number of blogs I read have had threads about Imus, replete with hundreds of comments: an apology isn’t enough, people don’t spit out racist things unless they’re really racist, etc.
Um, yes. Can we all just agree that old white people are almost all totally fucking racist, and we just have to wait for them to die? We can certainly take them off the television and let them die without a public platform. But really now — of course Imus is racist. Really, really racist. I just can’t believe so many minutes of footage could possibly be dedicated to that fact. Send him to a nursing home to slowly fade away, cared for by Jamaican nursing aides who push him around a little and then deny it, telling him he has Alzheimer’s.
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Presidential name game
April 10, 2007
Celebrity couples have all become subject to cute combo-names: Bennifer, TomKat, Brangelina, and now…
Gyllenspoon
What if, instead of restricting this practice to those who are actually banging each other, we also applied it to Presidential tickets?
For instance:
HillBama
And on the Republican side:
CondiCain
Or, here’s a good one:
MormonDick
Or, if Hillary doesn’t make the cut….
Barack O’GuyWhoseWifeHasCancer
xo,
Jen
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humor piece on Junkiness.com
April 9, 2007
I have a guest editorial on Junkiness:
Ways to Make News About War in Iraq More Interesting to Average Americans
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the ladies gym and the giggly girl-car
April 7, 2007
Today I worked out at a “ladies only” gym. From the front, the place looked basically normal, but once I was inside, I realized that the entire center of the space was a great big mat area on which a woman wearing a headset was conducting a rambunctious play group for children, such that the women working out could watch their kids playing.
It was very weird to work out while the background music suggests that you touch your head, shoulders, knees, and toes (not the worst idea ever) and then informs you about the alphabet, while also saying something about elephants.
(Side note: toddlers with tiny blonde ponytails, curled up on the floor pretending to be “flower seeds” and then sending up shoots and growing into flowers, is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, unless, you know, you released a bunch of bunnies into the class or something).
(Side side note: I can lift very many bunnies. I would like to see a gym that allows me to determine just how many).
It’s snowing like a motherfucker* here. Tomorrow I’m driving to Cleveland to spend Easter with my extended family.
The rental company gave me a bright red Chevy Aveo hatchback, which is a precious, tiny girl-car. I love it very much. I am so excited to drive it every time I approach it in the parking lot. It has three spots for cups, one of which is currently holding an apple.
A red apple preciously placed in the apple-cup of my precious, tiny red car? Love. I am reduced to giddiness, and saying “Zoom zoom!” on the turns.
* Why would a motherfucker snow? Oh, crazy idioms.
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capitalization
April 6, 2007
I saw a headline that said “Financial markets close for good Friday.”
I was concerned, until I realized it was “for Good Friday” not “for good, Friday.”
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I AM a barrel of laughs
April 6, 2007
Ohio is farmy.
I’m at a Panera in Findlay, and I am very, very grateful for its presence. If there are two thing Ohioans love to eat, it’s frozen custard, and Big Boy (see previous Big Boy tour hijinks). Never have so many white people added so much unnecessary mass to themselves.
But I have a salad, and free WiFi. Right across the street from Panera and in front of the club is the Butt Hut Cigarette Outlet: GREAT PRICES ON GREAT BUTTS.
If only I had a photo of this to offer you.
Update: Now I do.
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pro-natalism
April 5, 2007
I don’t know how I’d never noticed it before yesterday, but there’s a children’s clothing boutique in the East Village called “Lucky Wang.”
You know, if “I hit that egg right on the mark!” is your idea of “lucky.”
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The Buckeye State is mine!
April 5, 2007
Findlay, OH:
April 6th and 7th
Barrel of Laughs Comedy Club
1936 Tiffin Ave., Findlay, OH
7:30 and 10pm shows
$12
Columbus, OH:
April 11
Funny Bone
145 Easton Town Center
7:30pm
(614) 471-JOKE
$10
Image by the delightful Natalie Dee.
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internet access for the grammatically correct
April 4, 2007
Alert reader Amy sent in this.
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Beaten to the Punch Line
April 4, 2007
All my lady-comic friends are discussing this Washington Post article (thanks, Joselyn; also check out Carolyn’s response), entitled “Beaten to the Punch Line: The Odds Against Female Stand-Up Comedians Are No Laughing Matter.”
Who the hell makes Lisa Lampanelli cry?
“It sucks for us, you know?” she says through her tears. “If you’re a woman [comic], you don’t have the option to have a nice wife who stays home and has the kids for you. There’s just this mind-numbing schedule, and you can’t believe there’s nothing else out there in life.
“I’m jealous of the male comics who have kids. Who have wives. Who have a life. I cried on Valentine’s Day because I had nothing going on.”
Um, I think I’m going to look for a wife. I’m pretty sure I could get one.
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laissez-faire annoyance
April 4, 2007
My brother (a 24 year old industrial tool salesman and volunteer firefighter and a recurring presence on this blog, soon to be married to a woman whose name is soon to become “Jennifer Dziura”) has written this hilarious missive about moving companies:
In my life I have dealt with many different types of sales professionals. In fact, I am a sales professional myself. However, these individuals seem to take things to a totally different plane of existence.I was playing around online one day and found this website that allows you to enter some information and receive quotes from multiple competing moving companies. I say to myself “Self, this has to be a good idea. This seems like capitalism and free market competition at its very finest.” This was most likely the dumbest thing I have done in recent times. I did indeed get quotes from movers. I got like a fucking million quotes from movers. I got about 1,238,576 moving quotes the very next day. I reviewed them and promptly decided that I would much rather carry all of my own possessions from my apartment to the truck, personally, barefoot, through piles of broken glass and salt than give those guys that much money. Chances are they would just break all my best stuff anyway. So I put the idea behind me. Then the phone calls started. Oh god the phone calls. The same damn people called daily for like two weeks. Never once did I answer or return their messages, yet they continued completely undeterred. These people conduct business based purely on persistence. They don’t seem to have the slightest understanding of their customer base. And their phone etiquette was just atrocious. Anyone who actually intends to impress a potential client should attempt to represent your organization in some sort of intelligent and coherent manner. Please, stop leaving messages after a reasonable and sane number of unsuccessful attempts.
And for fuck’s sake, figure out what the fuck you are going to say before the fucking beep.
Now I hate these people and I always will. Besides, we talked Jen’s little brothers into traveling up here to help us carry stuff. All I have to pay them is pizza and beer. Checkmate evil moving companies. You are my biotches.
Did you know that the vast majority of modern-day readers of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War are salespeople? There are, in fact, (questionable) translations of the book aimed just at people who must daily gear themselves up to annoy the living shit out of you.
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Hahahaha! My I-Hate-Epson plan from 2005 has finally succeeded! Sort of.
April 4, 2007
In 2005, I wrote this. Scroll down to the comments! I am chipping away at an evil corporation’s business one cartridge-buyer at a time.
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seen in Union Square
April 4, 2007
Tourist dude carrying a gym bag and walking in a very fast and aggressive manner across the park, exclaiming to all:
“Fuckin’ city. You all got sooo much fuckin’ money and there ain’t no fuckin’ bathroom. WHERE’S THE FUCKIN’ BATHROOMS?!”
Posted by jen | Categories: New York | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post
best New York Times correction ever
April 3, 2007
From this article:
Correction: April 3, 2007A front-page article on Sunday about the experiences of high-achieving high school girls in Newton, Mass., misstated a verb property of Latin, which one of the girls in the article studies. It is the subjunctive mood; there is no subjunctive “tense.”
Indeed!
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