Blogs

Another one to add to the blog dream series. This one's a recurring dream in times of stress, and I suspect this latest flare-up is related to my imminent preliminary exams. For context: In Drupal admin mode, I can see what people search for in my archives, and in my referrer logs, I can see which Google queries lead to my blog. Well, in the dream, mysterious people send me threatening messages this way. I go to "administer," and I see searches for "I want to kill you" and all kinds of other horrible stuff. Then I go to my referrer logs, and there are all these Google searches for stuff like "Clancy must die," etc.

All right, now I've sufficiently creeped you out. :-) I didn't mean to, as one of my students says, harsh your mellow. Now I'm expecting some facetious archive search queries, such as "You need help."

You're not a dog at all! You're a CAT! Aloof and
lazy, you nonetheless rule the world.


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Via Palmer. :)

Being an advocate of free culture generally, I support what Larry Lessig has called the "slicing and dicing" of culture--pastiche, sampling, etc. That being said, sometimes I'm not too impressed with the product of such practices.

For example, I hate the song "Through the Wire" by Kanye West, which uses a sample from Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire." Perhaps it's because I enjoy Chaka Khan's music so much that I'd almost place her in the holy trinity of Joni Mitchell, Sade, and Diana Krall, but then it wouldn't be a trinity anymore. Or maybe it's because, in "Through the Wire," they speed up the song so that it sounds like the Chipmunks! What were they thinking? When I'm in the car, I mostly keep my radio on B-96, but when that song comes on, I'm all over the dial.

I also dislike Mase's "Welcome Back", which uses the theme song from Welcome Back, Kotter. The original song was lackluster, and so is this.

But, when I hear "Got It Twisted" by Mobb Deep, I turn the volume up as high as it will go and then car-dance. It uses a s-l-o-w-e-d d-o-w-n sample of Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science," and it is sick. You can listen to part of the song on the MTV.com article I linked.

Recently, I was interviewed for an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on parents' weblogs. The story was published today if you'd like to read it. Free registration is required, but here's my info:
Email: abstractgroove@lycos.com (my $p@/\/\ dump, by the way)
Password: citysong (one of the songs on this morning's dance playlist)

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm having big problems with my hosting company. My blog and email will be down for hours, then back up for a minute, then down again. Maybe THIS time it's back up for good, but in case not, please know I'm not doing a Chun. I'm most likely going to change hosting services once I use up my time (I'm paid out for the next few months).

If I go through my entire graduate school career without a research assistantship or a fellowship, is that going to look bad when I go on the market? I've never applied for either one, the reason being that I enjoy teaching, and I don't think I'd be happy if I weren't teaching. In fact, I've been teaching year-round for two years now, and I'd like to continue doing so if possible.

I just found out there's going to be a movie, titled Serenity, which will tie up the loose ends in the series Firefly. It's scheduled to come out in late April, and I can't wait to see it. :)