definitely a problem

My new motto.

this is not promising

So I called today to set up a counseling appointment. The woman on the phone said she would call me back in ten minutes to begin paperwork. An hour later, I had heard nothing, so I called again. The woman who answered this time tried to transfer me and ended up answering her own transfer. She finally got in touch with the promised paperwork woman, and delivered the message that she would call me back in two minutes. Half an hour later, still nothing. Are these people supposed to help the state of my mental health, or just remind me it could be worse?

item of interest

The most important news item of the day - you can make your own marshmallow gun.

the benator

Sigh ... here we go:

[Ben Affleck is] the hot new idea being tossed around by Virginia Democrats, who are desperately searching for a big name to challenge the reelection bid of rising GOP star Sen. George Allen next year, now that outgoing Gov. Mark Warner has ducked out. [...] Affleck spokesman Ken Sunshine said the rumors are baseless, though "he would be a superb candidate for public office in the future. Right now, he's very busy directing his first feature movie for Disney, 'Gone, Baby, Gone.' "

There are two things to consider in this. First of all, yes, Ben Affleck could be a senator. However, he can't right now because he's busy directing a movie for Disney. You may now run and hide.

a gay penguin update

I have been teased in the past for my insistence on the existence of gay penguins, which was unfortunately based on a forgotten TV show that I couldn't produce as evidence. Now, however, Andrew Sullivan vindicates me:

Of course, any fool could have told you that. They're invariably impeccably turned out, in simple and elegant black tie with a very discrete splash of colour, and you can't tell the boys from the girls.

No, there's other reasons, really. But this is what I get for my absence from the blogosphere - I completely missed the news that the March of the Penguins film is supposed to be a conserative Christian trimuph. Apparently because it's nice and happy and lovey, with evidence of ordered family dynamics and intelligent design. Doesn't feature any gay penguins, I guess. That should be the sequel.

happy death of sharia law in ontario

Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries' old religious rules called Shariah law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

This has been threatening on Canadian law's horizon for well over a year. The only question remains why it took so long to strike down. I've gone on about why before, so I won't now - in short, this means free Canadian Muslim citizens, in particular women, will not run the risk of having arbitrary, discriminatory law imposed upon them against their will. More at nosharia.com.

confession

So here's the dismal extent to which my reality show watching has fallen - I'm actually looking forward to the new season of the Gastineau Girls. I don't know how things got this bad - I just watched one episode, and then another, and before I knew it I was doing whole marathons.

While I'm confessing, I might as well mention I'm also ridiculously addicted to My Fair Brady, although this might have something to do with the fact I have a crush on Adrienne, and am of the firm opinion she should leave the Brady kid and marry me. We'd make a gorgeous couple. There's also a new America's Next Top Model, by the way, and so far I hate all the models, so it's a lot of fun to watch. However, I'm also watching Breaking Bonaduce, for which I have no defense whatsoever.

Not feeling too well lately ... this having a baby thing kind of messes you up. I actually went this morning to the hospital to get some things checked out I was a little worried about. Everything's cool, I just need to take it easy more. Easier said than done.

Anyway, in the process of avoiding cleaning the apartment, I made a new blog.

saint jack says

Jack Kerouac's Four Basic Truths:

Accept loss forever.
Be submissive to everything, open, listening.
No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge.
Be in love with your life.

return of the prodigal

The Little One, who has been visiting Grandma Mag in the distant land of the Columbus area for the weekend, is due home soon. Which makes her mother, however tired and overworked, very happy. It's very strange to have a person that has not been more than twenty miles away for more than a day literally for her entire life three hours away for a weekend's time. Her wonderful daddy, however, did his best to make me feel better in her absence, for which I am insanely grateful.

I was unbelievably lazy yesterday, which everyone says I deserve, but I still have so much work to do ... so today will be devoted to cleaning, organizing, and catching up on schoolwork. Yay.

I had a good movie weekend, however ... Friday night I went to go see Corpse Bride. It was a foregone conclusion I would like this, but, well, I did. Very lovely film. Saturday we rented The Life Aquatic, also very lovely. Anderson's best so far, I think. I also got The Merchant of Venice - now that I finally have a membership to the video store right next to my apartment building, plus tons of time at home, I foresee a huge increase in movie-viewing. Maybe having a baby was the best thing I could have done for my film education.

The rest of the site is up and working, at least to the best of my knowledge ... let me know if you find any problems. Still haven't tested much in IE, so advance apologies if it completely mutilates the page. [gratutious plug] Firefox is free, by the way [/gratutious plug]. Hopefully will be adding some actual new content soon. Oh, and the store isn't ready quite yet, but also soon there will be batgirl t-shirts and other assorted propaganda.

Where the hell did my comments go? There were here earlier ...

back in the saddle

The Blog of Jen is officially back from the dead. I actually really miss having a web presence, so I'll definitely be keeping this up, just like olden days. I decided to start a fresh blog this time out; my old blog is archived at http://jenmyers.blogspot.com.

The site layout is new, obviously, but most of the site content is still the same ... stay tuned as I get everything uploaded and checked out.

P.S. If someone is viewing this site in Internet Explorer on a Windows machine, I would appreciate it if you could let me know exactly how jacked up it looks in that browser. Since making the Apple switch, I can't view from home what my pages look like in Win IE, and there's always issues with it.