Just Kristin

I will admit that the note I wrote to Netflix customer service regarding their decision to kill their Profiles feature was probably far more ire-tainted than it needed to be. In fact, while I still believe that their attempt to do away with this beloved-by-the-fringe functionality was ill-informed and lamely defended (especially when a good majority of its users seemed to be tech-savvy enough to see thru the smoke), I was shocked at my own wrath. Anger management being another topic altogether, however…

I would like to thank Netflix for taking the flood of subscriber comment to heart and reversing their plan. Outside of this recent kerfuffle, I have had nothing but good experiences with Netflix: Their selection is top-notch, they have fantastic customer service, and they are tons cheaper than cable. I am glad that my family and I can continue to get what is not available legally anywhere else, and hope to add the new Roku box to our arsenal sometime soon.

Multimedia message

Originally uploaded by justkristin

Let’s see if it works better if you already have the post written. Will everything align like it is supposed to?

Inchy and I had lunch, and later, I shared a midnight snack with a nice gentleman on the sidewalk in front of Jamba Juice. Joy is wherever you look for it.

[Enter stage right]
Here it comes! See her. Read it. Love it. (You will….)
[Exit stage left]

[Enter stage left]
I’d have to say (3) Death, in the mall food-court, (1) with the Pain slingshot… (2) and while “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf echoes from the crappy PA system and ricochets thru the mall like kicked tin cans bouncing on flecked, institutional marble.
[Exit stage right]

[Enter rear center stage]
Saturday’s the big match. You should come, if only to see this woman, who is a goddess and hotter’n hell (although I only get her for the articles, I swear.)
[Exit stage-diving off front center]

This morning I turned in what should have been a well-written, well-researched paper on Petrarch’s Secretum, but was instead “secretum” of an entirely different sort. Much as the thought of doing poorly in my academic endeavors sends me into a tailspin (SDSU turtles swim toward tears - there’s a research idea if I ever take a bio course), I am fine receiving what I earned. My real concern is loss of acceptance and regard: that of others as well as my own. The pride that keeps me from asking for help is born of that very fear. (”They” will think less of you if you have to ask for help, and besides, you should be able to do it on your own!) Lessons learned: Don’t underestimate the requirements of a project. Ask for help as soon as you are stuck. Leave places that are high in distractions when working on a paper. Choose courses that fit the rest of your goings-on (and that are appropriate for you as a Bear of Little Brain). Things yet to be learned: How to choose an appropriate subject/topic for a paper. How to plan my time. I am sure there are more lessons to be learned, but right now work calls and I have to turn off the medieval angst and become a stoic worker-bee. I am sorry, professor. I feel as though, because I was in class at your invitation, that I let you down as much as I let myself down. Also, sorry, Gabe, in advance, for the horrid office-mate I am bound to be today.

impending arrival of “homeless” exchange student
necessary cleaning in anticipation of above
four needy puppies
unending regular chores
understaffed department at work
a paper procrastinated out of fear
+                   constant self-doubt

Screw *that*… Remember THIS!, originally uploaded by justkristin.

Two things caught my eye on a trip to Target today: a bumper sticker reading “9/11: Never Forget” (advocating jingoistic and revenge-driven grudge-holding that is almost inevitably incorrectly aimed), and this shortsuit, straight from my worst high-school-in-the-80s nightmare (truly worthy of forgetting). First Boy George back on tour, then Tab returning to the supermarket shelves, and now this? I am scared, folks. :P

Thank you, Stout denizens, for making this cheesehead proud! From a report in the Dunn County News:

Instead of reacting in kind to WBC’s exhortations, the students rejected the group’s evil epistles and forcefully demonstrated that they embrace the diversity that makes all of us human. And in doing so, they also showed their support for the families and friends of the three students killed in the fire.

As Doug Mell, director of university communications, declared, “They did UW-Stout proud.”

They did the community proud, too.

Supposedly, the WBC Four smiled the whole time the students rallied and were pleased despite their quitting the demonstration far earlier than they’d planned. That is one of the major problems with this and any similarly psychotically fundamentalist group: agree with them and they feel vindicated; ignore them and they feel empowered; dispute them and they argue your inability to understand; fight them and they feel martyred and holy. All we can do is wait for their unholy, un-Christ-like clan to become extinct while doing what we can to make sure that their ideas die with them.
One of the Phelps Phamily Phuckers commented thusly on the counter-demonstration (from the Badger Herald):

Phelps-Roper said the last time the group was confronted with the force showed Thursday was at a protest they had against a Madison high school putting on “The Laramie Project,” a play surrounding the murder of a homosexual college student.

“I have to tell you the brutish children of Wisconsin are a cut above the rest in their rebellion and disobedience and filthy behavior,” Phelps-Roper said.

Amen to that, and thank whatever deity pleases you!

A long while back I joined a joke list to which D subscribed because it was, for the most part, funny, and unlike other such lists, not prone to repetition. I was able to look past the occasional right-leaning joke because there were just as many that veered left, and a good majority that sailed safely in non-political waters. Today, however, I unsubscribed myself from the list over a joke titled “So you THINK you know what a nightmare is?” submitted to the list by one Lou P. The disclaimer on the forwarded joke, “EVEN A DEMOCRAT LIKE ME THINKS THIS IS FUNNNNNNNNNNNY,” came either from Mr. P or from the historically significant Internet figure to whom the list belongs, but either way it is a sad statement about anyone who finds the joke “FUNNNNNNNNNNNY” no matter what political group’s card they carry. A joke is only funny when there is a shared understanding among the members of its audience about the joke’s subject matter and its underlying truth(s). I hope, therefore, that there is only one “DEMOCRAT LIKE [YOU]“, sir, because in order to find this joke funny, you would have to believe that it is intrinsically horrible to be:

• “negro”
• circumcised (and therefore Jewish)
• “disabled”
• gay (alternately: “a fairy”, “queer”)
• in an inter-racial relationship with a mexican
• a “drug addict”
• bald
• an orphan
• unemployed
• an amputee
• destitute and living in a slum
• reliant on a pacemaker
• worst of all (and therefore key to the hilarious punchline), a Democrat

Isn’t that just a kicker! All that bigotry in one joke to define how horrible it is to be a Democrat! Wow, it must be hellish, then! I mean, who wants to be queer? or disabled? or black? or Jewish??? How amazingly rip-snorting!

I was going to post the joke after a jump, but those who would agree with my take on it wouldn’t want or need to read the whole thing, and those who would disagree would use it as a source of disgusting, bigoted laughter. It makes me sad that two adults in decent standing could, in this day and age, not see the manure they were spreading with this one. The final line about Democrats isn’t funny, not because I, as a Democrat am insulted, but because I, as a human, am incensed at the bullsh*t that came before. I have a sense of humor, and it does extend to myself and my various memberships and beliefs, but not to the presumptive labeling or valuation of other people’s circumstances. Good riddance to bad list rubbish.

Tankas_Crop_Circle, originally uploaded by justkristin.

My daughter has a dog at her dad’s house: a Siberian husky named “Tanka”. It comes with them when her father drops her off at the house after her weekend visits, and absolutely loves our front yard because digging and such are not only allowed but encouraged, at least for now. This weekend, however, he left us a crop circle.