Right, and how is Miss Summer listed in the phone book?!

2006-11-12 / 1:04 p.m.

I want to clarify the last entry: I'm not saying that gruesome and violent things shouldn't be shown on the news. They should. The world is full of terrible things, and awareness of such dreadful things is good and necessary. I mean, I'm glad I know about the guy that beat up his week old daughter. I'm all the much more aware of how fucked up the world is.

I got an e-mail from someone I've never met chastising me for arguing that the news should be sugar coated. I understand how someone could have gotten that message from the "Freak News Network" entry, but that wasn't what I meant at all.

All I was saying was that it is lame that CNN picks the most gruesome stories and makes them into front page video stories...especially when they don't have much serious news value. To me, it seems less like legitimate front page news, and more like frothing up people with pulp stories. I'm not against it, I just think it's kind of a perverse way to get people interested in a news website.

So bring it on, media! Tell me all about kitten abuse and infant beatings. Sometimes I just wish that the first headline was about the gruesome situation in Darfur or the terrible ramifications of global warming, rather than a particularly lurid crime/abuse story.

Freak News Network

2006-11-10 / 8:15 p.m.

Dear CNN.com,

Why is it necessary to present your most horrifying stories as video stories on the front page? The video about the kittycat abused until it was nearly dead, and then operated on for a million hours by a vet (when it probably should have just gotten the pink shot) was bad enough. ....But I'll admit, I've got a soft spot for kittycats and kittdogs and sea otters, so I might be a little overly sensitive at seeing a little one all beat on and stitched up. But today's headline video, "cattle prod used on baby"? Come on...

Seriously, how are there people this evil?! This 21 year-old guy just beat the hell out of his one week old baby. Several times. One week old.

6.10 lbs of landfill waste per resident of Mayretta

2006-11-10 / 10:58 a.m.

My cat is totally having some sort of nightmare. She�s moving her feet around and making little kitty barks.

So Allen conceded. I guess that means the Democrats have some sway again. I just hope that they use their newfound majority to go on a spree of passing good legislation, rather than a tour de force of Republican punishment. It�s not a matter of whether or not I think Bush should be impeached�it�s the fact that I don�t think it�s worth the time and resources to actually do it. Let�s tax rich people! Let�s try something new in Iraq. Perhaps find a way to get out of Iraq, rather than allowing war to become a way of life, which is what is happening. Let�s tax gas! Let�s spur some fucking innovation and start to deal with our massive environmental problems. Let�s sign Kyoto and stop being such colossal shitheads in the global community. In fact, let�s figure out how to make China accountable for its pollution too. The cynical side of me believes that the next two years will be the status quo spun in a different direction, but thinking about the power that comes with agenda setting cheers me up a little. The people who control the congressional agenda and manage what goes to the floor and when have pretty awesome power. I actually learned more about the logic of agenda setting and the paradox of voting a few weeks ago, and I guess it�s a little heartening.

Last night in Ninja class, we spent a significant amount of time learning and practicing various breakaways and escapes. One of the assistant instructors is extolling the use of diversions before attempting to escape from an assailant. Not knowing how to implement this in a practice setting, I shout out, �Look! A Squirrel!� and successfully distracted everyone in the immediate vicinity. I win. I also managed knock someone much larger than myself to the floor. Double win!

Still slogging though this good-paper-gone-bad. I had such noble and good intentions, and now I regret them all! I chose to write on municipal recycling programs because I think recycling is neat. In actuality, I should have not chosen municipal recycling programs because no one has written anything on the topic (as related to my thesis) since about 1991. OMG guys, they can re-use newspaper!?!?!??!??? Then I got the bright idea to supplement this lack of current literature by interviewing recycling managers. Everyone I contacted was really great and helpful except the sanitation people in Mayretta. The program director treated me like a moron when I initially asked for an interview. Even though I explained to him what I was doing and where I went to school, he somehow thought I was a high school student for the first five minutes of the telephone call. He gave me some patronizing information, and told me to look at the webpage. Then when he finally did listen and understand that I was research for a paper in a master�s program about economic development, he was all like, �grrrr, I�m so busy.� So I tell him that I understand and that I appreciated his time, yadda yadda blah blah blah, and I can get an interview with someone else. Like he didn�t even hear me, he sighs and says that he guesses he can find time to do it. Gee, Mr. TrashCzar, I�m sure you�re really important, so sorry to interrupt your day of managing trash collectors and calculating the tons of crap that go to the landfill. The icing on the cake is that he has now been out of the office for several days, including the one on which we had scheduled an interview last week. Congrats, Sanitation Division! You are the worst person I�ve called on the telephone so far this week. That�s really saying something, since I�ve been on hold with the Bursar�s office for 20 minutes now (and counting)

There�s not a lot of point here. Time to get back to work. O! And what marvelous work it is when you can do it in pajamas while drinking coffee!

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I feel the cosmos.

2006-11-05 / 10:15 p.m.

I will never procrastinate again. It doesn't lead anywhere good.

This is going to be short, because I am more tired than your mother after...I can't even manage to finish that, that's how tired I am.

Last night, Roger and I were going to see Borat. Mike met us there just in time to see that it was sold out. I'm not convinced I'll love it (it might just depress me), but it seems like a good movie to see and have an opinion about. After some vacillating on what to do next, the three of us went to my apartment. Mike brought his PS2 and introduced Roger and Me to Katamari Damacy. Complete insanity. Once I have a real, live job, perhaps I'll buy a used playstation2.

Yet again this year, I haven't really had a good place to wear my terrible (awesome) Quincea�era dress. I decided to get some use out of it for just daily activity.

And a snickers for Kurt Cobain!

2006-11-01 / 11:54 p.m.

I feel like I�ve lost my edge a little. I have more trouble paying attention to things for more than 10 minutes, I�ve procrastinated on a lot of my big papers and projects that are due in a week or two, and I�m just sort of mired in mediocrity. This makes me blue. However, this did not keep me from landing an offer at my employer of chizzoice, the GAmotherfuckin�O. I haven�t seen the real, honest-to-God, offer yet�it�ll be mailed, um, someday. I did get a call from the Atlanta boss on Tuesday morning filling me in on the details. I hope she can�t rescind the offer, because I was spaztastic on the phone. She called at the very beginning of my mid-morning homework break/snacktime. My mind was all over the place�mostly stressing about the work that had piled up during a week of irregularly heavy slacking, but also filled with ideas about the economics of recycling and living wage coalitions (the two papers in the works). Just as I was dressing a freshly toasted "alternative bagel", the phone rings. I was curious as to who it was, so I picked it up despite the fact that I only had one clean hand.

Sad fact: I only seem to wear makeup to class when I feel like I�ve gained visible weight. Tonight, I even added mascara, if that tells you anything.

So I�m a myspace member. I don�t use it much�it�s pretty good for keeping track of some bands I like, and I use it for occasional correspondence with my internet man, Lee. I�m �friends� with a few other people I know in real life, as well as some internet celebrities and pop-cultural-non-entities that interest me. Anyway, I�m always amused at the prevalence of people posting �surveys� full of obscure (and often uninteresting) facts about themselves. During my Monday afternoon class�which is often similar to watching paint dry�I formulated a super cool myspace-style survey of my own! Forgive the cross-posting, cool myspace friends!
1. Name: Emily
2. Favorite vegetable: Broccoli
3. Least favorite resident of mixed nuts can: The cashew
4. What�s more important in a mate: clean fingernails or clean ears: clean fingernails
5. Who was the last person to kick you in the stomach: Katherine, before that Roger
6. Would you have sex with your best friend�s boyfriend: OMG NO!
7. What is the wallpaper on your cellphone: Ravenclaw House�s crest
8. First thing you�d save in a fire: Lucy. After I rescued Lucy, I�d go back in for that lamp on my dresser or maybe that green cloche I love so much
9. Last thing you think about before going to bed: I�m going to die alone, aren�t I?
10. Least terrible Nazi: Wagner
11. Meanest (non-Hitler) Nazi: Ugh, Dr. Herta Oberheuser. What a bitch.
12. Are you nice, or a bitch? A bitch. In a quiet way.
13. Favorite egg preparation: scrambled
14. Current Toothpaste: Tom�s of Maine complete care peppermint
15. Brand of Stapler: Swingline!

Yesterday (Halloween), I had a funny thought. I remember one year dressing up in stereotypical fifties garb�poodle skirt, saddle oxfords, whatever. This was not unpopular when I was a kid�in fact, two of my neighborhood friends and I all dressed as girls from the fifties and solicited candy together. And I wonder, when we�re old, will kids (our kids, even) dress up in similar fashion? Are kids now dressing up like �the eighties�? On Halloween 2020, will kids dress like grunge rockers? And what in 2030?

I�m feeling older. Fortunately, I have a birthday coming up. Everyone should get me nice presents to help me fend off worry that I�m misspending my life.

Oh! Check the sidebar...I went to the aquarium last Friday. There are some bitchin' pictures if you're into fish and whales and stuff.

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Kittycats and kittydogs

2006-10-23 / 12:07 a.m.

It was the only thing different about me, the only beauty custom I hadn�t succumbed to�and then I went and got them pierced anyway. I�m wondering tonight whether it�s worth six months of taking care of my extra perforations to just take them out and let them heal. Would it even matter? It wasn�t a very exciting way to be different anyway.

A tentative endorsement for Google Calendar. I was just wishing the other day that I had a good calendar/planner application on my computer�it would be more helpful than my under-used paper planner would. And then Google read my mind (or my e-mail) and came to the rescue. I enjoy that you can separate your life into different calendars, and choose which ones to see together. Now I can separate comments like �Policy memo due today� from �Sore throat, possible carob allergy.�

Saturday, the Roger and I went to the Decatur Beer Festival. It was pretty fun.

It was not as sexy and exciting as I thought it would be�the recipe used cakemix, but with quite a few alterations to make it rich and full of saturated fat. It looked nice though, and I splurged on some fancy schmancy scharffen berger chocolate for the curls on the icing.

This is so boring. Is this my life?