huzzah!

i've moved.

friday random ten

1. lil' flip, "sun don't shine" (ugh; don't ask me; i downloaded this song for my cousin)
2. black eyed peas, "latin girls" (again, don't ask. i love/hate this crap.)
3. the beatles, "wild honey pie"
4. jay-z, "do it again (put your hands up)"
5. new edition, "hot tonite" (another song i downloaded for my cousin; i need to talk to her.)
6. ani difranco, "out of range (acoustic)"
7. q-tip, "a million times"
8. jill scott, "whatever"
9. the beatles "fixing a hole"
10.janet jackson, "i want you"

as a whole, i must say that i'm dissapointed with my random 10, but of those that i liked, here are two of my favorite lines:
-- "men get locked in some prison / women get locked in some house / and it doesn't matter if it's a warden or a lover or a spouse /"
-- "you represented in the fashion of the truly gifted"

can you guess where they're from?

further proof that blogger sucks

number of posts blogger says i have: 36
number of posts wordpress shows i truly have: 86

oooh, i can't wait to leave.

...in case you haven't noticed, i haven't posted a lot this week and am posting a lot today. i've been kind of slacking on posts this week partly due to a SUCKY work week (i need a vacation), a semi-sprained hand and general malaise. however, after girlwonder subtly talked about my blogging slackage this week, i'm producing a weeks' worth of posts just to spite her. :)
...well, that, and i *do* have a lot to say today.

can i also say that i wanted to partake in sid's celebration of food but i can't get next friday off? the bastards.

..and mr. censor strikes again.

as i was checking the lineup for monday's good morning america (doublechecking a tv listing i'm editing), i ran across this. apparently, the new education secretary is upset about an episode of a pbs cartoon called "postcards from buster" because the episode, in which buster tours vermont and educates kids about farming and maple sugaring, has two lesbian couples in the episode.

nevermind the focis is on vermont, farming and maple sugaring.

nevermind the show never says, "hey, this is a gay couple!" or explains anything about same sex unions.

just the mere sight of a lesbian couple has sparked the new secretary of education, margaret spellings, to ask the boston pbs station that produces the show to refund the government the money it contributed to that episode and remove the seal of the department of ed from that show. Her reasoning?

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

"Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."

from ap article

the boston station has said they will not distribute it to all of the pbs stations, but will leave it available for stations to air at their own discretion. however, wgbh has said they will still air the episode. right on.

i can't say i'm surprised with the board of ed. it's very in keeping with their current policies. i just think it's amazing that a man who on wednesday said that america will be "reflecting universal values and universal ideas that honor each man and woman, that recognize human rights and human dignity depends upon human liberty," yet we still in this country don't give basic rights to gays and lesbians (or people of color, for that matter).

hello mr. censor.

this is ridiculous. (stole the link from girlwonder.) not only are the nfl and fox banning an ad because it even mentions the "wardrobe malfunction" at last year's super bowl, but fox is also changing the name of their show to the best darn sport show?

fox has also decided to pixelate peter griffin's butt in an upcoming episode of family guy.

c'mon people. aren't we getting a little ridiculous? advertisers and tv folk are now so nervous that overlord powell and the fcc are gonna swoop down and fine them for offending even *one* person, that they are censoring themselves on trivial matters. this is effin' ridic.

it'd be one thing if the budweiser commercial reenacted the "wardrobe malfunction" -- hell, let me stop censoring myself -- janet's boob popping out, but they just allude to the whole incident. and it'd be one thing if the sports show was called the "best fucking sports show ever," but it's just damn. kids hear it all the time in church. ...and hear "bitch" on tv every so often.

::sigh::

this society is going crazy. we're all going to kill ourselves eventually, with the nation so split in extremes -- a society where the porn industry generates $5 billion in profits a year while a tv networks are afraid to say a word that appears in the bible or show a CARTOON butt!

everybody needs to just take a chill pill.

::yawn::

i know i've said i was tired before, but today i am utterly, completely, devastatingly tired.

why, you may ask, expecially since i spent the weekend holed up in my apartment thanks to the blizzard outside?

because my dumb ass decided to wait until this morning to dig out and clean out my car.

luckily, i got some help from the sherylster and kester, but i'm still exhausted from digging my car out of 19 inches of snow.

i better not be here next year.

me + vast amounts of snow = miss crankypants

...however, i did lose and find my right glove for the second time in a week. i keep losing it, and oddly enough, it keeps coming back. hmm.

blogger sucks

i must say that google gets it right most of the time.

i love google and all its many different searches. (my newest love of google's search options is their news search.)

gmail SO rocks my world. the many different options for searching and cross referencing is soo kick ass, and its gargantuan storage space is the bestest ever.

however, blogger sucks ass. they must be going thru server issues or something, because for the past two days, i've had numerous issues -- not being able to access my posts to edit, losing posts, ending up with multiple posts of the same thing -- and the fact that they do not have trackback is becoming a major issue too. i think i may have to make the move to my new blog, spiffy layout ready or not, cos i just. can't. take. it.

the wounds have healed.

i went and read ambra's blog this morning. i think it's symbolic, that on the day of the idiot's inauguration, that i was able to go and read the blog of a conservative i respect, something i haven't been able to do since the election.

and since i enjoyed waging a (one-sided) debate against someone on the same side of the fence with me earlier this week, why not do the same with the 'ol right winger?

aaaaand boy do i have some stuff to talk about.

first off, ambra has a brief post on consumer reports' condom survey results. noting that consumer reports rated two brands of planned parenthood's condoms as ones people should avoid, ambra wrote:

Consumer Reports recently released some research that suggests that just maybe, they hand out condoms and birth control with the hopes that youth will fail and become customers in the infanticide turned big business holocaust known as "abortion clinics". Ya don't say?

Apparently, the condoms Planned Parenthood give out rank very low compared to other brands. And here I thought PP wasn't capable of lies...

i have multiple problems with this.

first off, she incorrectly attributes consumer report's survey as suggesting that planned parenthood hands out condoms with the hopes that youth's attempts at contraception will fail. consumer reports offers no opinion on any condom manufacturer's intentions and offers no opinion about anything relating to contraception other than the facts they discovered through scientific testing.

secondly, i think it's ridiculous to believe that an organization that is about providing contraception would want their customers to fail. just because you don't agree with abortion doesn't give cause to demonize a group that provides women a choice other than (a) needlessly dying from an STD and/or (b) getting pregnant before one is (economically, emotionally) ready to be. (now we could get into the debate about whether someone who isn't emotionally ready for a child shouldn't be having sex, but that's for another day.) that seems more of what a pro-life organization would do to further undermine the truth that condoms do work.

thirdly, perhaps we should compare the sources of these different condoms before we even blame planned parenthood for deceit. all of the condoms tested were from for-profit companies, except for planned parenthood. planned parenthood relies on volunteers, grants and private contributions, among other things, to keep running. planned parenthood condoms are distributed for free or little cost, in comparision to some of the best testing condoms, which are sold for (at least) $16 for a pack of 24. therefore, it is understandable if they are not able to have as great condom quality as the for-profit condom providers.

lastly, she fails to note that not all planned parenthood condoms were poo-pooed; their "lollipop" brand landed in the middle of the pack as far as quality is concerned.

perhaps i should consider the source which she got her news from. but as an intelligent, thoughtful writer, i would have expected her to wage her arguments more on fact than the opinion of a news source that makes no bones about being slanted to one side.

i would love to talk about her other posts that insist that the martin luther king holiday is useless and that calling new washington governor christine gregoire's husband "first gentleman" is a ridiculous "fake title to keep the feminists happy." ugh. when did feminism and feminists become a dirty word? when did it become so horrible to want men and women to be treated equally?

but i'm tired. maybe i'll get on that later.

**update @ 3:30:**
ambra's response:

Um, to all the folks suggesting that the report didn't seek to connect motives. DUH.
People take reports and draw their own conclusions. Life news drew theirs and it's not far-fetched.
Considering the fact that abortion clinics are strategically placed similarly to Liquor Stores in the center of many an urban community, I think we ought to be just a little honest with ourselves and consider the very foundation of an organization like PP.
Plain and simple, PP benefits from teenagers screwing up (no pun in tended). That in and of itself leaves gaping opportunities for foul-play.
The least we can do is admit that.

PP is an organization composed of other non-profit organizations. non-profits do not serve to profit(as indicated in their names), but instead provide a service. PP's service is to provide means of contraception and education about contraception for those who cannot afford it, and/or are unaware of their options.

which goes to the other point that abortion clinics are placed in the center of many urban communities -- unlike liquor stores, which serve a product for profit that only negatively affects those who take it, the foundation of an organization like PP is to provide another choice. people don't get pregnant b/c the abortion clinic is around the corner. people get pregnant b/c they are either irresponsible and do not take the proper precautions when they have sex, or are uninformed on their options for contraception. PP doesn't profit from abortions and unplanned pregnancies any more than the Red Cross profits from natural disasters.

i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

son of a bitch

i had written about 5 random thoughts and then stupid blogger fucked up and couldn't post my post, resulting in a loss of my witty observations.

stanking blogger.

a brief recap:
i slipped on ice in the supermarket parking lot monday, which resulted in much embarassment but no bruising, thanks to my well-cushioned ass. i hate winter.

i hate my hair. i'm going through my bimonthly "i hate my hair" phase. i think i'm going to cut it.

i can't get the damned gilmore girls theme song out of my head.

happy freakin holidays

a blurb on the police blotter i'm editing:

A man, 27, took his wallet out to purchase a ticket at a machine on the south side of the Inwood Long Island Rail Road station on Jan. 1. A group of about six males surrounded the man and hit him with large plastic candy cane decorations. The man dropped his wallet as he fled from the assailants; he suffered scrapes on his left hand in the attack.

i can't make this stuff up.

smart men, smarter women

i read feministing's lambasting of maureen o'dowd for a column on studies that point to men's preference for subordinate mates (studies here and here). i feel her indignation, but i beg to differ on her interpretation of maureen o'dowd's comments.

feministing says that o'dowd blames feminism for men's supposed preferences:

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? The more women achieve, the less desirable they are? Women want to be in a relationship with guys they can seriously talk to - unfortunately, a lot of those guys want to be in relationships with women they don't have to talk to.

Firstly, Dowd’s assumption that young women or women in the service industry are somehow NOT smart and are more likely to “service” men in their personal life is just disgusting.

And I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, feminism wasn’t a fucking dating service! If some asshole doesn’t want to date you because you’re smart and successful, is it the fault of feminism or the asshole?

she then goes to criticize o'dowd's quoting of hollywood sources as her proof and asserts that men's should be given more credit than o'dowd and the studies are giving them.

now, on her base beliefs, i definitely agree. men should be given more credit. not all men are pigs that want to lord over their women. feminism isn't a dating service. some women in the service industry are smart(just as some women in other industries are not). but i don't think maureen is saying the opposite of any of these things in her column. she simply questions the idea that men can be (and are) okay with women being on the same level as them (and thus want to be with them, too).

i think it's a fair question.

some men (and, sadly, some women) aren't ok with the greater possiblities women have (for greater education, higher positions of power, etc.). that can be seen in the studies by the university of michigan and the four british universities. i don't know what feministing's experiences with this issue are, but i know, at least, that this is an issue for some in the black community. many black men have a problem with their woman making more money than them because that means that they aren't the primary bread winner, and in some sense, are being "taken care of" by their women. in other words, for some men (black and otherwise), a successful woman emasculates them since they are no longer "taking care of their woman," as a man should(black feminism talks about this specific issue for black folk).

o'dowd sees this, has talked to women who have witnessed this, and now has studies that say this, so she writes a column about it. just because she writes about it doesn't mean that she believes it herself. and tho she does refer to those in service positions as "below" those in "higher" positions, i don't think (perhaps naively) that she was insinuating that these people are dumber than others; it's just that higher education, one of our society's measuring sticks for intelligence, is one of the biggest tickets to those other industries..

it would have been great if she had gotten some non-hollywood sources that see this as a problem. and perhaps she shouldn't have drawn a line between less-wanted women with higher IQs and more-wanted women in secretarial, assistant positions. but i think she makes a valid point by highlighting that many instances in reality and film lately point to the trend of men going towards those whose jobs are to take care of them, rather than those in jobs that help themselves or others.

o'dowd isn't making an anti-feminist point, she's reiterating a point that has been made by many feminists (betty friedan's the feminine mystique immediately comes to mind) -- that there's something wrong a society that says it's ok for men to (a) actively seek women who seem to solely exist to take care of them and (b) to avoid women who demonstrate their own independence.

food overload

mommage left this morning, with loads of takeout leftovers in my fridge.

why am i considering throwing out the whole lot out when i get home tonight? i'm conflicted, cos i've been raised to never waste food, but the indian food i ordered fri. nite wasn't as bangin' as i had hoped (note to self: never order chicken vindaloo again), and the other two meals ... i have a feeling that they won't be as good during their encore performance.

i'm kind of excited about cooking tonight, but i'm kind of not. i abhor going to the grocery store. i pay $50 for food that i get one, maybe two good uses out of. it's ridiculous.

i'm in a semi bitchy mood(what's new, huh?). i'm sending myself to my room until my mood has improved.

friday roundup

the day started out pretty craptacular -- it was a rainy morning, i didn't want to get out of my bed, and i let myself down by not going to the gym this morning. i made a deal with myself, as i was driving home last night, that i would not go to a little taste of italy then, but would go to the gym this morning and reward myself with gargantuan extra delicioso cream puffs tonite. weelll, it didn't happen.

soo, i came in feeling kind of craptacular for various reasons, but my day was *suddenly* brightened -- i forgot that today was payday! and then, on top of that, not only was it pay day, but apparently, it was BONUS day too! whoo hoo! i paid off one of my credit card balances this morning, thanks to my BONUS and i may even take my mom out to dinner this weekend(she and my cousin are driving in tonight for the weekend).
...or maybe i'll be a stingy pants and just put the excess in savings. yeah, i think i'll do that instead.

at any rate, here's the friday linky link roundup:
-- in the no big surprise department, macy's admits that it has singled out blacks and latinos unfairly when it comes to shoplifting. it includes the story of a woman who was accused of shoplifting tho she produced receipts and the new york state attorney's findings that 75 percent of shoppers detained at macy's stores were black and latino, even tho the number of actual latino shoppers was significantly less.

-- a story on a school district that is opting to teach alternatives to evolution in their school district, including "intelligent design," which states thet all living organisms are so complex that there had to be some divine hand in their creation. the york daily record (the local paper and the paper i interned at for two summers) has a nice series on it, too.
...and to think i lived in this area two summers in a row.

-- two great new blogs i found ultimately thanks to feministe -- she's like the internet switchboard for feminist blogs, i tell ya -- blackfeminism.org and sister outsider.

-- and speaking of blackfeminism, i got this link from the site, about a court that ruled that it was ok for a company to fire women if they didn't wear makeup. their rationale? the act wasn't an issue of gender inequality because it was just as fair to force women to wear makeup as it was to force men not to wear makeup. completely ridiculous, i tell you.

haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog

so i impulsively got haloscan trackback for my blog, even tho i'm about to leave this place for greener pastures. i then realized that since i installed this, it erased all my other comments! grr.

i only did it so i could trackback other people's blogs, but again, it's kinda foolish on my part, since i'm about to leave.

work is slooooow today. it's hard trying to look productive when you have no avenue thru which to be productive. i've looked and overlooked every story in my queue. lord, please help me off of this plantation..

hmm. i'm gonna go try this trackback thingy. (hopefully) i'll be back later.

...and did i mention how i'm struggling to not drive my car to a little taste of italy tonite and getting more cream puffs? i have a problem.

and the girl gets what she wants.

a coworker referred me to an italian bakery that's 10 minutes out of the way on the way home, this bakery and deli appropriately named a little taste of italy. :)

by the time i got there (an hour before it closed) they didn't have any small cream puffs. but they had these gargantuan puffs convered with chocolate and topped with a chocolate covered strawberry. i went a little crazy and got a connoli and a coffee tiramisu type dessert thingy:


that's yummy goodness right there. 

i am exerting extraordinary will power and have only eaten the cream puff -- and i must say that it was FREAKIN' AMAZING! a little taste of italy kicks culinary ass.

cream puffs, city life and pop gay culture

i want cream puffs. don't know why, but the craving hit me a couple hours ago. got a recommendation for a nice italian bakery in deer park, which i'm going to try tonight, but it's iff whether they will have cream puffs. i also hear that trader joe's has yummy frozen puffs, but i don't feel like going there tonight; the italian bakery is kinda sorta on my way home.

hmmmm.

i miss being in d.c., where there was this nice italian bakery at the food court, of all places, in union station, vaccaro's which had yummy cream puffs for not too much money. ::sigh.:: i think it's becoming more and more apparent that i need to live in a city; i grew up in rurality for 18 years, but i crave the convenience and "we-have-everything"-nesss of a major city. long island is close to nyc, but damnit, it's not close enough.

...in other news, i watched queer eye for the straight girl last night, partly out of curiosity on how these women would be made over, and partly out of curiosity to scope out the resident lesbian. i don't dig queer eye for the straight guy -- the men on that show get on my nerves. i don't know why, but i thought that *maybe* this one would be a little better... not so much.

the men are as gay as ever, but what irked me more than anything was the res les, honey. i'm ok that she's a little (actually, verry) femme-y -- hell, i'm a little femme-y -- but what irked me was that while all the guys had specific occupations/purposes ("the look," "the life," "the locale"), honey's purpose is just as "the girl." her whole purpose, it seems is to come in and serve as a nice lezzie accompaniment who swoops in to give the poor straight girl make-up tips, as if one of the guys couldn't give her even better makeup tips (actually, robbie, "the look" was putting on makeup while honey helped rebekah apply lipstick correctly). add that to the fact that while the men are verrry gay, honey was just ... there.

that tapped into another pet peeve i have with mainstream pop culture; while there are plenty of gay men running around all through pop culture, with a good mix of gay men (will and grace is a perfect example of that), there are so few gay women out there. where are the good lesbian role models out there? one could argue ellen is one, but forget that -- while she was with her partner, tho she could clearly be seen with a ring on her left hand fourth finger, she never once mentioned her on the show. and while she said she doesn't want to be seen as a political force, she could at least mention some aspects of her gay life from time to time.

all that's left is rosie o'donnell, who seemed to go crazy and mean in the public spotlight after she came out (exhibit a - that damned flock of seagulls haircut) and a dearth of lesbian characters(all you see are softball-playing butch women or the male-fantasy-ish supermodel kissing a supermodel).

the only positive thing i've seen is the l word, which while having issues with rarely having any butch-y lezzies on the show (altho, it's in la, so maybe even the butch-y girls look glam), is a positive show that shows women who love women that aren't solely defined by their gayness, but are significantly affected by their orientation.

far be it for me to pass judgement on whether someone is gay enough -- i'm barely out to most of my co-workers and you certainly don't see my running around with any gay paraphenalia -- but it's still unnerving to me to see that there are so few positive gay women and/or characters out there that are willing to talk about their gayness at least once in a while.

i'll get down from my soapbox now, especially since i started out this post talking about cream puffs. :)

and one more way...

...for apple to take your money.

i'm excited

even tho the day started pretty craptacular and promises to continue as such (i drove to work in sleet this morning and according to the weather channel, i'll be driving home in snow this evening), my spirits are still raised, as girlwonder is now helping ease my layout dilemma/meltdown. i'm not gonna say anymore about it until it is done ... just know there are changes a'coming! whoo hoo!

in other news, i've requested to be listed as a feminist blogger on feministe's blog. i felt like SUCH a dork yesterday cos my heart skipped a beat when i saw my blog listed in feministe's loooong ass list of bloggers. i may be 1 of 50, but hey, i'm listed. i've now reached my goal -- to be mentioned by two bloggers i respect - the aforementioned feministe and sid.
now, i'm onto a new goal. besides getting out a new layout for my blog, i've decided to put forth the goal of having at least one blog a week on a feminist topic -- i think at the least, i will point my (6) readers to articles/topics of feminist import, but i'm going try to put out some opinion and/or insight as well. i've been maning to write on women and the media for almost a month now; perhaps i'll get on that later today.

however, as for now, i must go do some actual work. heee.

overwhelmed

before i get into my rant, check out bessie coleman, the first licensed black aviator in the world. she got her license in france in 1919 cos no flying schools in america would accept her, not only b/c she was black, but b/c she was a woman. very gutsy woman whom you rarely see in your usual black history programs.

...and onto the rantage. as i mentioned in my last post, part of the reason for my absence has been my unhappiness with my current blog design.

i'm very particular about what i want. i want a design that fills three criteria:
1. it fits my personality, mood and title of my blog. (therefore, blogs with pastels, pictures of lillies or puppies really isn't gonna work here.)
2. the layout is 3 columns and written with css.
3. it's free.

on my down time at work, i've been looking for templates i can copy the basic structure that i can riff off of, but i must say that i've become overwhelmed; i've seen lots of examples of what i want mine to look like(like here and here) and i even found a skeleton layout that i could soo build my template from, but then i run into the issue of bringing it in so that it works with blogger's tags and header, etc. and i get confus-ed.

to get around blogger issues, i've started flirting with the idea of getting my own domain and a setup like typepad or wordpress or expression or something (i don't even know if they're all the same thing), but even exploring that avenue has me overwhelmed!

when my parents got divorced and my mom was forced to go out in the working world again, she kind of fell into the information systems field. as a result, for almost as long as i can remember, we've had a computer in the house. i was always up on the latest stuff (even if we could afford to have it ourselves) and i was interested in being up on the latest stuff. i taught myself some html and used to be pretty up on the latest stuff.
however, real life (school, then work and girlfriend, friends and family somewhere inbetween) gradually took up a larger chunk of my time that it used to and as i simply search for a template for my blog that fits me, i find i'm way over my head.

too much drama over a small thing? maybe. but this (blogging) isn't necessarily a small thing to me; it's an avenue to find like-minded people outside of who/what i already know, and most importantly, i nice place for me to write and vent. so is it a small thing to want to have control over how said avenue looks?

...and of the same token, i feel like the stupidest person on earth cos i still haven't figured out how trackback links work.

she's back

sid slowly dragged me back online.

as evidenced by the last two posts, i've been feeling, for lack of better word, blah, lately. january is usually my least favorite month of the year -- it's after the holidays, winter truly sets in (with two more months of coldness ahead), with the sun making chance appearances while it's cold as all holy hell outside (my hell is cold, damn it). i hate winter, especially since i am now officially a grown up and will never have a snow day again. add to that the crappy mood at work, what with people leaving and the thin, dumb, crappy product we're putting out lately, and i haven't been in the mood to really type anything. or read many blogs, for that matter.
oh yeah. and i also didn't win aroundthewaygirl's contest. i wanted my own domain. poo.

at the same time, i've renewed my quest to do my own template for this blog thingy, which has been vaguely unsuccessful, altho i have not given up hope yet.

in typical maryann fashion, some random tidbits:

• -- i heart gmail. i just discovered a new feature on my gmail this morning -- when i select an address out of contacts, it shows all the emails i've sent to that person or had sent to me from that person. ::sigh.:: i want to run away with gmail, marry it and have thousands of its babies.
  -- sid should get public congratulations of her new arrival. :D
  -- i've gotta get back in the gym. i fell off the fitness wagon, hard and after watching super size me last night, i feel bad. i'm not eating fast food (especially mcdonald's) any more. i swear. i mean, i know i said the same thing after reading fast food nation, but i mean it this time.
  ::gives most sincere look possible::
  okay, don't beat me if i rescind on this, but 22 years of mcd's brainwashing is hard to conquer.