Bad Reputation

While going through my web page statistics in preparation for tomorrow’s edition of Googles, I noticed an iota of traffic being directed to my website from Pipl.com (here), a search engine that “delves into the deep internet… in order to give people an accurate account of their online reputation.” Pipl is trying to hitch themselves onto the phenomena of Googling oneself, or ego-surfing disguised as rep-defense.

But I didn’t know all this about Pipl at the time. I simply followed the URL of the referring link and went directly to the Pipl page, pictured below:

cindy

The reputation of Cindy Fitzgibbon, morning weather woman for the local Fox News, is officially besmirched… by a previous Googles post on this very website. Honest, I wasn’t calling Cindy Fitzgibbon a whore, I was just reporting on a search engine inquiry that cryptically declared her as such. And to have it all jumbled up with jibberish about breasts and Bobby Peru, I mean, shit. Sorry Cindy.

Posted in Miscellany.

Tagged with Famous People.

Comments Off on Bad Reputation

By Meredith – November 13, 2008

No Pain, No Gain (They Say)

For the past month I’ve been taking bi-weekly Pilates Reformer classes at a local Pilates studio. A friend had suggested that I “try something new” after the wedding celebrations were over in order to fill the void in my life that had been occupied with wedding planning and general bridal preening. I was torn between Pilates and worm composting (really). I picked Pilates.

Not long ago I would have said that I picked Pilates because I want a body like Madonna, but have you seen her lately? She looks like all of her flesh has been replaced with beef jerky. Definately not a good spokesperson for Pilates, though she is rumored to do it for 4 hours a day in addition to grueling weight-lifting and running regimes and a diet that consists of buffalo meat, melon, and parsley.

A better Pilates advertisement would be Lena, my Monday night instructor, a vision of lean muscle and perfect posture. She presides over the room of 10 white women whose median age probably crests 40, each cavorting atop of a Reformer in tune to Lena’s commands: Lay down, sit up, adjust the tension, turn around, grab the straps, bend your knees, tuck your belly, raise your head, drop your elbows, push, pull, press, pump, flex, inhale, exhale.

Despite going through a 50-minute introductory class which unveiled the mysteries of the Reformer, I do nothing right. Lena is constantly whooshing past me to nudge my back or widen my feet. Saving me from total embarrasment is the realization that many of the other students aren’t even following Lena’s instruction. One woman just lays on her Reformer, moving the carriage slowly back and forth with her legs. Another woman takes frequent breaks to strech out her back in child pose.

The magic behind the Pilates Reformer is that the abdominals are constantly being worked through second-hand engagement, so even when you’re doing chest flys, you’re toning your waist. And then there are a host of exercises that focus exclusively on the abdominal muscles, such as the infamous Hundred, the Roll Up, and Criss Cross. Since my abs are as weak as a newborn kitten, I falter halfway through each count, my core burning. I already feared the soreness of my stomach muscles the next morning.

Lo and behold I awoke Tuesday morning with nary a hint of abdominal reprisal. I was a surprised at my resilience considering the last time I did a crunch was 5 years ago, but attributed it to my overall physical condition. Then, this morning: I woke up feeling as if I had been punched repeatedly in the stomach. I quickly realized that I had killed my abs so bad that the onset of muscle soreness had been delayed an entire day. Suddenly I understand why the word “Reformer” has a sinister tone.

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with Exercise.

Comments Off on No Pain, No Gain (They Say)

By Meredith – November 12, 2008

Belt Tightening

While doing our weekly grocery shopping at Whole Foods this past weekend, I spied a display of prepared one-dish family-sized meals that had been marked down from $11.99 to $5.99. I am genetically lacking the ability to walk past cheap food without stopping to contemplate it. There was eggplant parmesan, macaroni and cheese, and a spiced pumpkin risotto that looked particularly tempting and semi-healthful. After squinting through the plastic covering to inspect the texture and crumble of the risotto, I scooped up a package and walked back to the carriage.

“What is that thing?” Mr. P asked. (This is his standard way of phrasing “what’s that?” and I think it’s so adorable that I’ve never tried to refine it.)

“It’s pumpkin risotto,” I said. “It’s going to be my lunch this week.” I pointed at the price tag. “6 bucks, and it should last for 4 lunches. Bam, I save $20 this week.”

“Are we poor?” Mr. P asked, another standard response whenever I bust out cost-saving strategies in the grocery store. Before I could answer “Not if we buy this pumpkin risotto,” he darted away to the cheese counter to recoup my lunch savings with Camembert and Mahon.

All over the country, people like me — who aren’t poor, haven’t lost their jobs (yet), and aren’t grimly beholden to a mortgage or a falling 401K — we’re cutting back nonetheless. The media’s doomy vibe has us terrified about what the future will bring. I hear that tent towns are springing up in urban areas in the West, that lines are forming outside of soup kitchens and food pantries in North Carolina, that unemployed white-collar workers who once aspired to humble Wall Street are now flocking to bartending schools. A recent New York Times article about the upsurge of garage sales in the Midwest reports that some towns have passed laws to limit the number of garage sales per home per month. The article also described one woman who sold her toddler’s tricycle to a stranger for $3 even as the child was riding it.

Buying discounted pumpkin risotto and consuming it for 4 straight lunches in order to save $20 sounds a little lame in comparison, as if I’m ‘playing recession’ in a virtuous bid to escape the guilt that comes from eating $7 Cosi sandwiches every day. But after 2 days of pumpkin risotto, the full weight of my sacrifice rests in my stomach like a tasteless, non-digestible ball of short-grain rice.

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with Food, Shopping.

Comments Off on Belt Tightening

By Meredith – November 11, 2008

Disturbing the Peace

I love reading police logs. It’s a lifelong passion, really, that started when I was an inquisitive pre-teen with a healthy curiosity about the seedier endeavors within the larger community. Benign schadenfreude for both the victim and the aggressor blossomed as I poured over the accounts of the robberies, the assaults, and the arrests. Perhaps that sounds sociopathic, but I like to think of it as me learning right from wrong from the viewpoint of American law enforcement. After all, it’s not a crime until you get caught.

The typical police log recounts run-of-the-mill traffic stops, vandalism, larceny, and suspicious activity, but usually there is one unusual item sufficiently bizarre and/or vague enough to capture my imagination ( for example, “A report was taken from a hotel guest who said a woman assaulted him and broke his dentures”). I am also fond of the items that turn out to be nothing (for example, “Report of suspicious bones were determined to be from an animal and were old” or “Responded to Weald Road for a noise complaint and found it was brothers and sisters ‘goofing around,'”).

The Boston Police Department’s public logs are maintained in a blog and available in RSS, which is how I read them. Crime statistics are aggregated (Non-fatal Shootings: 10 Non-fatal Stabbings: 6…) and several crimes per day are highlighted in detail, either because of their severity, notoriety, or weirdness. It is in the weirdness category that the police log ghost writer excels, injecting humor and irony into the factually impassive prose.

There is no better example than this classic post from yesterday’s BPD blog, ingeniously entitled Way too early for Christmas music & for some neighbors in Southie it was also way too late.

At about 4:04 am, on Saturday, November 8, 2008, officers from Area C-6 (South Boston) responded to a radio call for loud music in the area of 5 Shepton Terrace. On arrival, officers spoke to several residents who stated that one of the tenants was playing his music much too loud. As officers approached the location in question, officers could hear Christmas music being played at an unnecessarily loud level. When the tenant answered the door, officers instructed him to lower the music due to calls made to 9-1-1. Officers further advised the tenant that people were having difficulty sleeping due the loud Christmas music. With the music turned down, officers left the location. However, a short time later, officers were called back to the same address for the same reason (noise complaint). Upon arrival, officers were able to hear the loud Christmas music. When officers knocked on the door, the tenant answered the door and began swearing at the officers.

Officers arrested Kevin Foley, 54, of South Boston and charged him with Disturbing the Peace.

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with Crime.

Comments Off on Disturbing the Peace

By Meredith – November 10, 2008

Movie Review: Burn After Reading

Anticipate before seeing. Enjoy while watching. Forget after viewing.

Posted in Review.

Tagged with Cinema.

Comments Off on Movie Review: Burn After Reading

By Meredith – November 7, 2008

Dorcas K. Vanwinkle

As a technical writer who often creates her own mock data in 4 different languages for realistic screenshots and sample reports, I find the Fake Name Generator to be an invaluable resource. In addition to fake names, it fabricates addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, phone number, social security numbers, and credit cards numbers. For instance, “Chad D. Willson, 4167 Hurry Street, Keezletown, VA 22832, 540-269-4158, Birthday: May 1, 1949, MasterCard: 5519 4866 4327 8702 Expires: 11/2010, SSN: 224-34-8297.” I mean, that stuff is gold. Pure bogus gold!

“Fake” is somewhat of a misnomer, though. It’s more random than fake because all of the data is pulled ad-hoc from a database, and nothing precludes it from being coincidentally real. But I’ll bypass this technicality, because the Fake Name Generator saves me from having to recycle jumbled versions of the names of my family and friends — not to mention their credit card numbers –, and from having to research plausible zip codes for particular states, and from having to remember the format of German and French phone numbers. All of these random names do sound really fake: Joan J. Perry, Lance J. Yerkes, Ronald E. Rosenbalm, Tammy R. Baxter, Paulette J. Scott, Douglas C. Schrom, Eugene F. Dolphin, Jimmie K. Yarbro, Dorcas K. Vanwinkle. (That last one is my favorite. I wonder what the “K” stands for.)

The other day I met someone and we were going through typical introductory chitchat. “What do you do?” I asked. She has an administrative job at a biotech company. “What about you?” she asked. I am a technical writer for several software companies.

“Wow, that sounds exciting!” she said, her eyes widening in a way that conveyed genuine excitement. Well, no, not really exciting. I spend a lot of time re-writing the same things over and over again. It can get tedious. “You know what tedious is?” she says, leaning close to me as if to impart a great secret. “Making copies. Binding reports. Answering the phone. Taking inventory on coffee pods.”

I laugh because she gives an exaggerated grimace of irritation. I am thinking about the Fake Name Generator, which is one of the more exciting aspects of my job. And I guess it does beat taking inventory on coffee pods.

Posted in The 9 to 5.

Tagged with Technical Writing.

Comments Off on Dorcas K. Vanwinkle

By Meredith – November 6, 2008

Mental Beach Day

In the aftermath of this electrifying election, I feel a combination of profound joy and crushing fear, the latter induced by the certainty that no one man can surmount the challenges that America faces. And how quickly Americans tend to forget the origins of dysfunction. In three years, if we’re in the midst of a prolonged recession, if health care isn’t fixed, and if terrorists manage another attack on American soil, I have no doubt that the fickle swing voters who gave Obama their support will be all too happy to throw it behind a Palin/Huckabee ticket. A lot or nothing can happen in 3 years.

But enough. I’ve had my fill of politics for awhile. It’s a satisfied surfeit, like dozing contently on the couch after a marvelous meal, as opposed to the aggrieved “I’ve had enough” nausea that would have resulted from a GOP victory. I’m going to take deep breaths and pretend I’m back at Crane’s Beach in Ipswitch, gazing at the oddly-layered skyline above the lapping waves and enjoying the calm of a mid-October day after the crowds have surrendered the shores to the niggling seagulls. Deep breaths…

ipswitch1

ipswitch2

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with Beach, Politics.

Comments Off on Mental Beach Day

By Meredith – November 5, 2008

The Love Vote

The passion for voting was ingrained me when I was about 12 years old. You see, I was a huge fan of Sunfire romances, a fiction series for young adults that formulaically featured an older teenaged girl during a notable period in American history who is torn between two men. The steamy Sunfires taught me more American history than our family’s set of Encyclopedia Britannicas ever did. I learned about the Civil War, the San Francisco Earthquake, frontier life, the Gilded Age, the sinking of the Titanic, and how to make it in 1930s Hollywood. I also learned to be suspicious of the suitor who offers the most stability and comfort, and that I should instead opt for the beau who approves of my independent streak and free-thinking spirit.

One of the Sunfire romances called Laura offered me an eye-opening glimpse at the women’s suffrage movement. It seemed incredible to me that as recently as 1920, in my grandmothers’ lifetime, American women could not vote. Even more disturbing were the graphic details of the suffragette struggle, including police brutality, hunger strikes and force feedings, and the total alienation and disdain that was heaped upon suffragists from the world at large. It blew my mind. One night I closed Laura and sobbed into my pillow, my adolescent hormones aching with anger and empathy for the injustices perpetuated against my gender. I resolved to never, never to take my right to vote for granted.

Today I woke up early and skipped breakfast in order to make it to my polling place at 5 minutes before 7am. There was already a line and voting had begun early. People were quiet as we inched through the doors of the elementary school and closer to the gymnasium. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I got my paper ballot, filled in the circles, and then checked out. The lines had already swelled to twice the size as when I arrived. The poor old ladies working the polls were going to have a hell of a day.

I walked to the subway, musing upon the euphoric feeling that voting in this particular election has bestowed in my soul. I wonder which suitor Laura and the suffragettes would have chosen: The Black man who defeated the former First Lady for the Democratic nomination, or the extremely old former prisoner of war choose a hockey mom as a running mate? Could they have even fathomed of such an election?

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with Politics.

Comments Off on The Love Vote

By Meredith – November 4, 2008

Endorsements

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. — Barack Obama

In a landslide, Obama has won… the most newspaper endorsements. According to this article , Obama-Biden has 240 daily newspaper endorsements while McCain-Palin has 114. That’s a 2-1 margin for Obama. (And lest you think it’s pure liberal media bias, note that about 20% of papers that endorsed Bush have flipped to Obama).

As a resident of Massachusetts, the vote that I will cast tomorrow for President does not matter. My opinion will simply be pooled into the collective sentiment of my infamously liberal neighbors, and our support will be handed to the Democrats, who will be too busy panting over the Virginia percentages to notice good ole reliable Massachusetts. It piques me to consider that my vote does not count as much as the vote of a resident of Ohio or Florida, but at least I’ve been saved from a bombardment of political advertisements and weekly visits from Sarah Palin.

I compensate for this feeling of latent disenfranchisement by donating money to Obama. It makes me smile to know that I’m paying money so that the ninnies in Indiana can be convinced to vote in their economic self-interest. Classic socioeconomic class irony.

I do not purport to believe that my puny endorsement will make a difference, but perhaps there’s some undecided North Carolinian who has stumbled upon this website. It is to this troubled soul that I beseech to go and vote Obama. I won’t try to win you over with stoic eloquence or confusing logic, but rather I’ll appeal to your sense of serendipity: There you were, scouring the Internet for porn and/or a recipe for brussels sprouts pie, when suddenly, there’s this Massachusetts liberal telling you to vote Obama. Some would say coincidence, others would say… miracle.

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with Media, Politics.

Comments Off on Endorsements

By Meredith – November 3, 2008

Mount Tecumseh 4003′ November 2, 2008

4003′ Mount Tecumseh barely squeaks onto the list of White Mountain 4000-Footers, ranking stone-cold last at 48 out of 48. So I blame a minute plate tectonic quirk that we did not hike the 3980′ Sandwich Mountain (which the AMC guide raves is “extremely scenic”), but instead choose to bag Tecumseh despite its ill repute as the easiest, blandest, most chorelike 4000-Footer. Tecumseh is also the location of the posh Waterville Valley downhill ski slopes, so it carries the damning stench and sights of human.

We had always regarded Tecumseh as low-hanging fruit that could be picked off during a hiking trip with loftier goals, as extra credit. But Tecumseh fit perfectly with what we wanted today: A half-day hike on a nearby mountain that wouldn’t expose us to too much snow and cold. To make Tecumseh a bit more interesting, we started hiking on Tripoli Road and headed south to the summit (instead of starting in the ski area and heading north). Our route was an hour longer (6.4 miles roundtrip), but less traveled and hidden from the ski lifts.

The White Mountains received its first snow last week, so it was fresh, crunchy, and perfect for walking on. As we ascended Tecumseh, the small patches of snow gradually thickened and deepened to about 2 inches, although the trail was never completely blanketed. We saw moose hoofprints on the trail near the top, but no actual moose.

It was chilly at the summit, so we scarved ourselves and then scarfed our sandwiches. The view was not great but we could peak through the trees at the Tripyramids presiding over the leafless Waterville Valley. (A bit more snow, and we would have stayed in the valley and XC skied).

On the way down, we decided to unnecessarily cross a river via a log. Mr. Pinault quaked and checked his balance with his hiking pole. I crossed on the log with peerless poise and grace, but I couldn’t stick the dismount due to an over-rotation directly into a bush (4-tenths deduction).