To the person who found my blog by searching "astronomy is boring"...I applaud you, sir/madam. I suffered through astronomy 10whatever in silence my junior year of college, and you have been proactive in taking your bold yet accurate assertion to the internets. Well done.

PS: My favorite blog reader is still the guy who found me by searching for "jakob dylan jew fro". But I like you all very, very much.

I fear for their lives

So these ex-Googlers made a fancy new search engine with a fancy new pretentious and difficult to pronounce name. Yay.

Also, I have tentative plans to go to Istanbul with my cohort in academia to prevent* a paper at a conference in October, but they keep blowing things up. Thoughts?


*NOTE: This was supposed to say "present", but I prefer prevent. It makes me feel like we are international spies trying to stop a paper from being shown at a conference at all costs. It also makes me feel better about my slightly nerdy chosen profession.

Brooke Hogan for president!

"You know what? I am actually not that much into voting. I think it’s kinda crazy that a woman is running, because I think that women deal with a lot of emotions and menopause and PMS and stuff. Like, I’m so moody all the time, I know I couldn’t be able to run a country, ‘cause I’d be crying one day and yelling at people the next day, ya know?"-Political pundit, medical professional, and scientist, Dr. Brooke Hogan.


QUESTION: If hormones and womens' troubles are to blame for bad decisions, then how do you explain why a grown man would choose to look and act like this?


I'm also curious if it was PMS that caused her brother to drive drunk at excessively high speeds resulting in a crash that left his "best friend" brain dead, then try to shirk responsibility for it. I'm just wondering. Then again, my tiny lady brain makes it hard for me to understand things sometimes.

Church, meet State

Oh, I love South Carolina and its rich tradition of believing that laws set out in the Constitution don't apply to them. The "Palmetto State" (seriously, that's their nickname) has upped the ante this time by deciding that offering a Christian-themed, state-issued license plate is totally kosher. Except that it's really not.

Is it just me or is the separation of church and state debate not at all a murky one? It seems terribly clear-cut. I also love when some Christians in this country get all up in arms and act like they're being so very persecuted and don't have religious freedom. It's adorable to me. It's like having a support group for white, male CEO's; it's just so hard for them to have a voice.

Here's the difference: for every other group, the right to freedom of religion means that they will be allowed to practice their religion without being arrested, murdered, rounded up like cattle and shipped to a concentration camp to be killed. For a select group of Christians, it means the right to make everyone else practice their religion (seriously, these are the same people who took to the streets because it offended them when we said "happy holidays" and not "merry Christmas"-you're right, we should all bow to your personal religious mores). I'M NOT SAYING ALL CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE THIS. Also, I'm not saying that you shouldn't want to express your religious beliefs in public-actually, I'm envious, it must be nice to know that you probably don't run the risk of someone vandalizing your car or hate-criming your ass by doing so, as some of us do. Just don't involve the government.

For the love of God (ha! Get it!?!), buy a Jesus bumper sticker if it's that important. Or better yet, be comfortable enough in your own faith that you don't feel the need to do P.R. for it.

I Love Desperation

You guys, I am SO UPSET with myself right now :(

I finished my summer thesis design class a week ago. It basically consisted of me writing my entire thesis proposal. So I had to commit to a topic. And I was happy about my topic, I felt good about it. I felt like it was important, something worth studying. Until tonight. Tonight, fair readers, I came upon something in the media truly worth devoting a year of my life to researching.

Tonight I witnessed the wonder that is Vh1's I Love Money.

There's nothing much to say about this gem. I can't even mock it, because the show is so brilliantly self aware that it makes fun of itself flawlessly. I can do no better. Except to say hey, Midget Mac? You have too much self-respect to put on a bathing suit for thirty seconds, but you'll compete on national television for the chlamydia-laced affections of Flava Flav's rejected paramour? Nice.

Hey, I have an idea where I can put the boots though

Me: Hi, I was wondering if you had any boots in womens' size 11 in stock (FOR MY 16 YEAR OLD SISTER WHO'S AWAY AT CAMP, NOT ME, DON'T LECTURE ABOUT HOW I DON'T NEED ANY MORE SHOES)

Cheerful Target Employee: Well, I know we had some BIG SIZES, let me check!


Hi, I know my (and my poor, poor sister's) feet are big. 11.5 is not a dainty shoe size. But seriously. There's just no need for that.

Also! Did you notice? I have a new domain name!! This only took about 4 hours to do, as I soon discovered that EVERY SINGLE DOMAIN NAME ON THE INTERNET IS NOW TAKEN. I was even going to go with "jennlovesphil.com" because I DO, but even that was already claimed (congrats to Jennifer and Phillip Friday of Illinois on their recent wedding, by the way-the pictures are just gorgeous!). Google had some good suggestions for me, though. I'm still wondering if I should have gone with www.pongqueen.com, but I think I made the right decision.

As a parting gift, I leave with two pictures of myself from a few months ago (I know! You're welcome). I just figured out how to add effects and do fun things with pictures on my Super Fancy Mac, even though I still don't know what I'm doing, other than moving things around and it makes the picture look fancy. We can now add this to the growing List Of Things I Know How To Do On My Super Fancy Mac That I've Had Since January:
1. Turn it on
2. Connect to the Internet
3. Open iTunes
4. CHANGE COLORS OF PICTURES WAHOO!!

Ugggggh, stupid, stupid fake bangs

Candy cigarette, kids. Because smoking kills, but everyone knows that it LOOKS really, really cool.