Hey Monkey!

me, right now

oh, I've been so remiss in posting. I don't know why. But i just wanted to say that even though I'm behind in developing my dissertation proposal (i'm supposed to defend it in may but that's not going to happen, by several months at least) I'm doing really well. I like the direction I'm going in and am having fun learning about things as I go.

I haven't told you about my girlfriend, A, but she's absolutely wonderful and I love her so much. We've been going out for 5 months now and I couldn't be happier. She is such a sweet, caring, fun person. She's so exciting to be with and I'm so happy I've met her.

Anyway, I'll blog more soon (ha!) but I just wanted to let you know where things stand. I'd like to blog about all the great times we've had before I summarily forget them. That would be good to do.

holy free music, batman

Wow, I just found this page that links to a hoard of free songs offered by bands on their websites. I downloaded over 150 songs and I'm really loving all discovering all these new bands. I highly suggest checking it out.

Alanis' Humps

Holy crap Alanis Morissette's awesome.

my latest

Every time I hear the song Wildcat by Ratatat I think it should be in an iPod commerical. Check out the results of my little project.

(you really should check out Ratatat. They're awesome)

woodspiders, or, isn't the internet wonderful?

To which homelessflaneur commented:

do you think that when darpa commissioned the internet, this is what they imagined?

Best summary of YouTube, ever.

my limitations

I'm really insecure about singing, dancing, and clothing. But you already knew that.

haha!

so much stuff happening! so little time to post!

but as strange as it may sound, with the semester starting up soon I may actually have more time to post. good stuff going on....

exHAUSted

whew! monday was tiring. taught class from 10-11. met with Jo from 11-1. Met with a student from 2-4. Taught K how to use the voice recorder. Met with a student at 5. Read (or skimmed) approximately 60 pages and prepared a handout and graded about 40 hws.

if you're lucky i'll tell you about my awesome date that I had this weekend. but that will have to be tomorrow.

zune: super cool ad

so the zune itself is rather unimpressive but this ad blows my mind. first off, it's rather ballsy to show a forest creature being burned alive, especially when the music makes it sound like it's screaming in pain. Secondly, I think it's rather deep... it manages to capture the idea that the ipod is supposed to be boring (muted white colors) while the zune is (supposed to be) colorful, that the zune has wireless, and that while it might be painful to switch, it'll change your life. all that plus it has a great visual style and interesting music. way to go, MS!

frameworking

things look like they might finally be starting to come together for the dissertation topic. it's not that I'm there yet but I recently read about some things that I think help put a lot of things in perspective and might give me a framework for the topic. had a really good lab meeting today where I presented my new ideas and data. clearly there's a lot to work on but everybody was very enthusiastic about it.