Here's a snippet of an article from Stop Smiling:
Sunday, December 09, 2007
BUILDING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING:
ISAAC BROCK OF MODEST MOUSE
(EXCERPT)
The complete Stop Smiling Interview with Isaac Brock, which was conducted throughout summer 2007 in Chicago and at Brock’s home in Portland, appears as one of three cover stories in the second annual 20 Interviews issue. (For more on this issue, click here). An excerpt of the conversation follows below
Interview by JC Gabel
Stop Smiling: You grew up in Issaquah, just outside Seattle. You moved around quite a bit, and then settled in Portland, but at one point you were living in a logging town in central Oregon.
Isaac Brock: Once I got into Portland I had no idea what the fuck I was doing in that logging town, except for drinking and getting fat. I didn't go back, I just moved out. It seemed to me at the time that if I wanted to get things done — I was too easily distracted — and I was in the middle of nowhere, so I’d have nothing but time to focus and work on stuff. But because I was isolated, I drank out of boredom and I got less done. I didn’t ever actually intend on moving to Portland. It wasn’t a thought I had. It just kind of happened and here I am. Occasionally, people ask me to talk about the music scene here, like, “Why do you think people move here?” — that whole thing. There’s a lot of rock and rollers who live here, but I have no idea. I don’t hang out. I stay at home most of the time.
SS: Can you see yourself living anywhere else permanently — other than the Pacific Northwest?
IB: I have a hard time imagining that — maybe the Northeast, around Maine. It’s beautiful. It’s cold enough to not make me paranoid about the world ending, and it’s near seafood — treats from the deep.
(read the rest of the article at the link at the top...)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
why don't you just put up the damn parking lot already
I forget the movie, but whatever it is, Edward Norton's character has a line where he complains that he hates pecan pie because everybody makes it too @%^$#@& sweet. This is how I feel about these cereal bars I bought the last time I was at the grocery store. Well, ok, let's just put it all out there--this is how I feel about lots of foods; too sweet.
But these cereal bars have me particularly grumpy because they tricked me! Schnuck's (think the midwest equivalent of Hannaford's) has this "Full Circle" brand they carry. It's more or less their mass-produced hippie food brand. (It's the only kind of rice milk I've been able to find at that store yet, and it pretty much sucks. When you're a (even just quasi-) vegetarian, you can tell when you're eating something that was made by meat-eaters for non-meat-eaters. Rice milk is not easy to make well, and this stuff tasted like they didn't really try all that hard. But I digress...) Now, don't get me wrong...I am all for mass-food producers hopping on the hippie bandwagon. I myself am not a super-rabid supporter of organic foods (and got myself into plenty of shit in Vermont for my lukewarm support of organics...), although I do really like the effect that movement is having on the food industry at large.
So, I like that mass-producers are seeing that they must produce healthy/all-natural options if they want to stay competitive. However, the success of such ventures seems to vary widely by instance. Quaker Oatmeal has this tasty multi-grain, low-sugar oatmeal they've begun carrying...and it's way good. (And they don't cram it full of Splenda to make up for the lack of sugar...they just really understand that there are people out there who don't feel like eating a bunch of really sweet stuff.) Smucker's makes an all-natural peanut butter that is sort of ok...I've had better, but I'd still buy it over our usual American excuses for peanut butter any day. (My personal fav has for years been Maranatha; smooth or crunchy. That stuff is food for the gods.) Anyway, I pegged this Full Circle as a hippie lip-service brand the second I saw it...but decided to give it a go anyway. I really like having cereal or granola type bars around the apartment...good for breakfast on the run, good for snacking. They make some decently priced cereal bars, so after my usual scan of the ingredients list, decided to give them a spin.
Well let me tell you. Do not get these puppies. Too much sugar. You can make something as organic-y or natural as you want, but when you drown it in sugar, you've totally missed the point. Looks like I should have checked out this site first. (I think a B+ is far too generous considering the sugar offense.) I think reading the sugar content will need to go on my usual food product check-over list...right up with there with soy, preservatives, and partially/fully hydrogentated stuff. Damn you and your sneaky ways, Full Circle. I think I need to go shopping in the hippie land of Urbana more often...I've recently been told legends of oat milk being sold over there...
But these cereal bars have me particularly grumpy because they tricked me! Schnuck's (think the midwest equivalent of Hannaford's) has this "Full Circle" brand they carry. It's more or less their mass-produced hippie food brand. (It's the only kind of rice milk I've been able to find at that store yet, and it pretty much sucks. When you're a (even just quasi-) vegetarian, you can tell when you're eating something that was made by meat-eaters for non-meat-eaters. Rice milk is not easy to make well, and this stuff tasted like they didn't really try all that hard. But I digress...) Now, don't get me wrong...I am all for mass-food producers hopping on the hippie bandwagon. I myself am not a super-rabid supporter of organic foods (and got myself into plenty of shit in Vermont for my lukewarm support of organics...), although I do really like the effect that movement is having on the food industry at large.
So, I like that mass-producers are seeing that they must produce healthy/all-natural options if they want to stay competitive. However, the success of such ventures seems to vary widely by instance. Quaker Oatmeal has this tasty multi-grain, low-sugar oatmeal they've begun carrying...and it's way good. (And they don't cram it full of Splenda to make up for the lack of sugar...they just really understand that there are people out there who don't feel like eating a bunch of really sweet stuff.) Smucker's makes an all-natural peanut butter that is sort of ok...I've had better, but I'd still buy it over our usual American excuses for peanut butter any day. (My personal fav has for years been Maranatha; smooth or crunchy. That stuff is food for the gods.) Anyway, I pegged this Full Circle as a hippie lip-service brand the second I saw it...but decided to give it a go anyway. I really like having cereal or granola type bars around the apartment...good for breakfast on the run, good for snacking. They make some decently priced cereal bars, so after my usual scan of the ingredients list, decided to give them a spin.
Well let me tell you. Do not get these puppies. Too much sugar. You can make something as organic-y or natural as you want, but when you drown it in sugar, you've totally missed the point. Looks like I should have checked out this site first. (I think a B+ is far too generous considering the sugar offense.) I think reading the sugar content will need to go on my usual food product check-over list...right up with there with soy, preservatives, and partially/fully hydrogentated stuff. Damn you and your sneaky ways, Full Circle. I think I need to go shopping in the hippie land of Urbana more often...I've recently been told legends of oat milk being sold over there...
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
best. alarm. ever.
I am so getting myself this. No question about it...I've been waiting for this alarm clock all my life. (It's like the real-world equivalent of Google's now infamous mail goggles..."are you sure you want to turn your alarm off? let's make sure you're lucid enough to properly answer that question by posing you with a small puzzle...")
This way beats just putting the alarm clock on the other side of the room. I could strew these three pieces in various other rooms for that matter--all different. Maybe even hide one in a cereal box to remind me to eat breakfast.
Just trying to find the proper Google blog link for that previous paragraph has drawn me off into all sorts of other wonderfully rabbit-hole deep thoughts. One in particular struck a chord with a thought that has been gracing my mind repeatedly a bit lately; that of mastering an art form.
I've been daydreaming a lot lately about when I used to play piano seriously. I have this confused winter coat, that although remarkably lovely, cannot decide if it's blue or purple. (I think I probably bought this coat for that very reason. And it's effing warm, too.) The other day I realized it is very nearly the exact same color of the cover as a piano solo copy of "Rhapsody in Blue" I used to have in high school. The link's picture doesn't entirely do it justice, but you get the general idea. If one could ever truly be in love with a few bound pieces of paper (well, not few, the damn thing was almost 30 pages and I'd only ever perform about 12 or so of them...), then I was with this. Not only was the music it contained gorgeous and worthy of devotion, but the ambiguous shade of blue chosen for the cover was almost a challenge: "go ahead, try to label me or conquer me or stick me in a box; and when you fall short--as you most certainly will--you will understand my true beauty."
There are various phases I came to be familiar with when seriously practicing a difficult piece on a long-term time frame. (Phases that I have come to recognize in all sorts of other areas of life...but those are other ramblings for other days...) First, you pick a piece that you absolutely love. If you work on anything long enough, you're going to get sick and tired of it for certain, and you might as well postpone that event as long as possible. The first phase is rather rewarding...there's a bigger return for your time investment as you go from just very slowly being able to work your way through a few pages, then eventually the whole piece, to finally being good enough at it to recognize some semblance of a continuous melody or various voices.
Next, you begin to hit a plateau. Progress slows. You come to know the piece better and have a better idea of it as a whole. It becomes a familiar commute, complete with easy stretches, and bumpy difficult parts that force you to slow down. You begin to curse these bumpy difficult parts from denying you the satisfaction of doing justice to a piece of art you are emotionally invested in. Have you ever had a dream where you were trying to yell, but no sound came out of your mouth? That's what this feels like.
Next comes the intense part. You are dead-set on smoothing over the bumpy patches; there is fire in your veins from the frustration of not being able to freely express yourself through your craft. You play the piece through and make note of all the places that need work. And you set to work on them one by one. You will play the same eight measures over and over again for two hours if that's what it takes. And often, that's exactly what it takes.
Eventually, you reach the point where you can begin slowly stitching the piece back together from all of the microscopic bits you had focused on. The smoothness of some transitions may have temporarily been forgotten as you lost the artistic forest for the technical trees, and must be relearned. But the task of a full play-through is now getting easier and more fluent each time you sit down. You see a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you've gotten to the end of that tunnel before, you know you're bound for something amazing.
And then it happens. You're just sitting, playing the piece through one day, and perhaps in the middle of a passage that you have a particular liking for. And you lose yourself in the sound for a minute. You've just played it a little differently. You weren't paying attention to the notes or the staff or your deliberately mapped-out fingering; you were speaking. (That's the best I can explain it, and if you've never actually experienced this, then any explanation is doomed to fail anyhow.) The instrument and the writing became auxiliary vehicles for your expression for an ecstatic, fleeting moment. Eventually these beautiful moments start to bleed their way across your entire playing of the piece. And when you get to the point where you can play the entire thing on autopilot, leaving your waking mind to fully express itself in the artistry of your playing, that my friends, is the most wonderful manifestation of freedom I have ever felt.
So I've found this similar journey in lots of other places as well...learning a (spoken) language, learning a computer language, playing a sport, cooking, ...I could go on. Granted, I don't think I've ever mastered anything else quite to the level of where my piano skills once were, but I imagine if I were to have, the end result would feel quite similar. I do hope, one day, to master some sliver of mathematics/science to (at least, if not more than) this extent. And the reason I even got into this stuff in the first place was for the gleeful freedom of expression and further exploration allowed by the advancement of such theoretical technologies.
I think the true metric of an advanced society is the extent to which it uses its hard-earned intellectual advances for purely leisurely enjoyment.
This way beats just putting the alarm clock on the other side of the room. I could strew these three pieces in various other rooms for that matter--all different. Maybe even hide one in a cereal box to remind me to eat breakfast.
Just trying to find the proper Google blog link for that previous paragraph has drawn me off into all sorts of other wonderfully rabbit-hole deep thoughts. One in particular struck a chord with a thought that has been gracing my mind repeatedly a bit lately; that of mastering an art form.I've been daydreaming a lot lately about when I used to play piano seriously. I have this confused winter coat, that although remarkably lovely, cannot decide if it's blue or purple. (I think I probably bought this coat for that very reason. And it's effing warm, too.) The other day I realized it is very nearly the exact same color of the cover as a piano solo copy of "Rhapsody in Blue" I used to have in high school. The link's picture doesn't entirely do it justice, but you get the general idea. If one could ever truly be in love with a few bound pieces of paper (well, not few, the damn thing was almost 30 pages and I'd only ever perform about 12 or so of them...), then I was with this. Not only was the music it contained gorgeous and worthy of devotion, but the ambiguous shade of blue chosen for the cover was almost a challenge: "go ahead, try to label me or conquer me or stick me in a box; and when you fall short--as you most certainly will--you will understand my true beauty."
There are various phases I came to be familiar with when seriously practicing a difficult piece on a long-term time frame. (Phases that I have come to recognize in all sorts of other areas of life...but those are other ramblings for other days...) First, you pick a piece that you absolutely love. If you work on anything long enough, you're going to get sick and tired of it for certain, and you might as well postpone that event as long as possible. The first phase is rather rewarding...there's a bigger return for your time investment as you go from just very slowly being able to work your way through a few pages, then eventually the whole piece, to finally being good enough at it to recognize some semblance of a continuous melody or various voices.
Next, you begin to hit a plateau. Progress slows. You come to know the piece better and have a better idea of it as a whole. It becomes a familiar commute, complete with easy stretches, and bumpy difficult parts that force you to slow down. You begin to curse these bumpy difficult parts from denying you the satisfaction of doing justice to a piece of art you are emotionally invested in. Have you ever had a dream where you were trying to yell, but no sound came out of your mouth? That's what this feels like.
Next comes the intense part. You are dead-set on smoothing over the bumpy patches; there is fire in your veins from the frustration of not being able to freely express yourself through your craft. You play the piece through and make note of all the places that need work. And you set to work on them one by one. You will play the same eight measures over and over again for two hours if that's what it takes. And often, that's exactly what it takes.
Eventually, you reach the point where you can begin slowly stitching the piece back together from all of the microscopic bits you had focused on. The smoothness of some transitions may have temporarily been forgotten as you lost the artistic forest for the technical trees, and must be relearned. But the task of a full play-through is now getting easier and more fluent each time you sit down. You see a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you've gotten to the end of that tunnel before, you know you're bound for something amazing.
And then it happens. You're just sitting, playing the piece through one day, and perhaps in the middle of a passage that you have a particular liking for. And you lose yourself in the sound for a minute. You've just played it a little differently. You weren't paying attention to the notes or the staff or your deliberately mapped-out fingering; you were speaking. (That's the best I can explain it, and if you've never actually experienced this, then any explanation is doomed to fail anyhow.) The instrument and the writing became auxiliary vehicles for your expression for an ecstatic, fleeting moment. Eventually these beautiful moments start to bleed their way across your entire playing of the piece. And when you get to the point where you can play the entire thing on autopilot, leaving your waking mind to fully express itself in the artistry of your playing, that my friends, is the most wonderful manifestation of freedom I have ever felt.
So I've found this similar journey in lots of other places as well...learning a (spoken) language, learning a computer language, playing a sport, cooking, ...I could go on. Granted, I don't think I've ever mastered anything else quite to the level of where my piano skills once were, but I imagine if I were to have, the end result would feel quite similar. I do hope, one day, to master some sliver of mathematics/science to (at least, if not more than) this extent. And the reason I even got into this stuff in the first place was for the gleeful freedom of expression and further exploration allowed by the advancement of such theoretical technologies.
I think the true metric of an advanced society is the extent to which it uses its hard-earned intellectual advances for purely leisurely enjoyment.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
no-turkey day
Everybody needs to see this...it's hilarious in its extremity, but sort of sad in its proximity to the truth at the time time.
Happy Thanksgiving, America. =(
Happy Thanksgiving, America. =(
Sunday, November 16, 2008
sampling error
So I took the physics GRE the weekend before last. It went better than last year, but that's all I'm going to say for fear of jinxing myself. And so now begins the several weeks-long wait for my score.
But I had come across a physics student message board back when I was trying to find good studying resources, and was curious to see if there was any chatter about how people found the Nov. 8 physics GRE. Well, chatter there was. The board went in chronological order, so the first posts I read were all from just a few hours after people had taken the exam. The first one even went something like, "Nov. 8, 2008 was an easy test!"
F@#k!
As I continued to read down the first several posts, I began to fear I was really screwed. All these kids talking about having answered 80, 90 questions on the test. (For the uninitiated, the test is 170 minutes / 100 questions = 1.7 minutes per question. Not, a lot, of time.) But when I got about halfway down the first page of posts, someone said "hey, seeing a lot of indian names here, what do you think about these scores...", asking about his chances applying as an international student (presumably, to the States). I started looking back at the user names...there were a lot of Indian names, and furthermore, their post times showed that they had taken the test hours ahead of 9 am my time.
So I kept reading. Eventually the westerners chimed in. They didn't find it as easy; maybe answering 50, 60 questions. I answered 61, only guessing on 2 or 3. Maybe I played it a little too safe; if I had spent a little more time guessing and a little less time being absolutely sure of an answer, I might've been able to get up to 70 answered. But who knows if that would have helped any. (right answer = 1 pt, no answer = 0 pt, wrong answer = -1/4 pt to counteract random guessing.) At the end of the day, all I care about is beating out the other Americans...we know we're powerless to even approach the astronomical scores of the Asians.
(Sorry if that sounds awful red team vs. blue team of me...but why is being up in arms about dependence on foreign oil so en vogue, but our dependence on foreign intellectual capital is not? That's probably another rant for another day...)
And the other thing is, even after reading about the potentially more moderate scores, there still probably is a serious sampling error inherent in my taking this board to be a representative sample of all the scores from the Nov. 8 test. Of course it's going to be the students most interested in their scores, the more motivated ones, and likely the ones that did better on the test, that are going to post to this board.
Then I started thinking, it's kind of like this in relationships, too. My last relationship, I fell in love with a guy that I only interacted with (in person, I mean...we talked incessantly on the phone, ichat, etc) on his vacations from work. He'd visit me, or we'd meet in the middle; one time I flew out to his place for Thanksgiving, but even then he had some time off from work. (Well, the notion of him ever truly being on vacation from work borders on the laughable, but that isn't really essential to my point here...) My point is that we only interacted in person when he was not (wholly) consumed with his work life.
The flip side of all this, and what really stings, is that his decision to love me was not prone to such sampling error. When he would visit me in Burlington, I'd still be in classes and doing homework. Even when we weren't in Vermont, I was still often studying for a test or working on a paper. He saw me in my usual day-to-day mode, and saw a place for himself in that life. Which there was. Then I move out here to some strange land, only to discover that there is not really a place in his life for anyone right now. And historically, my bullshit detector (my character judgment function, what have you) has been remarkably accurate. But this one caught me unawares. In his defense, his self-delusion ran so deep, I think, that even he wasn't aware of it until too late.
And so I will comfort myself with this cold analysis of where I went wrong in trusting someone that did not deserve my trust.
Sorry for the broken-heart drivel, but I simply cannot let this be me:
My normal approach HAS to be useful here! It's all I've got!
But I had come across a physics student message board back when I was trying to find good studying resources, and was curious to see if there was any chatter about how people found the Nov. 8 physics GRE. Well, chatter there was. The board went in chronological order, so the first posts I read were all from just a few hours after people had taken the exam. The first one even went something like, "Nov. 8, 2008 was an easy test!"
F@#k!
As I continued to read down the first several posts, I began to fear I was really screwed. All these kids talking about having answered 80, 90 questions on the test. (For the uninitiated, the test is 170 minutes / 100 questions = 1.7 minutes per question. Not, a lot, of time.) But when I got about halfway down the first page of posts, someone said "hey, seeing a lot of indian names here, what do you think about these scores...", asking about his chances applying as an international student (presumably, to the States). I started looking back at the user names...there were a lot of Indian names, and furthermore, their post times showed that they had taken the test hours ahead of 9 am my time.
So I kept reading. Eventually the westerners chimed in. They didn't find it as easy; maybe answering 50, 60 questions. I answered 61, only guessing on 2 or 3. Maybe I played it a little too safe; if I had spent a little more time guessing and a little less time being absolutely sure of an answer, I might've been able to get up to 70 answered. But who knows if that would have helped any. (right answer = 1 pt, no answer = 0 pt, wrong answer = -1/4 pt to counteract random guessing.) At the end of the day, all I care about is beating out the other Americans...we know we're powerless to even approach the astronomical scores of the Asians.
(Sorry if that sounds awful red team vs. blue team of me...but why is being up in arms about dependence on foreign oil so en vogue, but our dependence on foreign intellectual capital is not? That's probably another rant for another day...)
And the other thing is, even after reading about the potentially more moderate scores, there still probably is a serious sampling error inherent in my taking this board to be a representative sample of all the scores from the Nov. 8 test. Of course it's going to be the students most interested in their scores, the more motivated ones, and likely the ones that did better on the test, that are going to post to this board.
Then I started thinking, it's kind of like this in relationships, too. My last relationship, I fell in love with a guy that I only interacted with (in person, I mean...we talked incessantly on the phone, ichat, etc) on his vacations from work. He'd visit me, or we'd meet in the middle; one time I flew out to his place for Thanksgiving, but even then he had some time off from work. (Well, the notion of him ever truly being on vacation from work borders on the laughable, but that isn't really essential to my point here...) My point is that we only interacted in person when he was not (wholly) consumed with his work life.
The flip side of all this, and what really stings, is that his decision to love me was not prone to such sampling error. When he would visit me in Burlington, I'd still be in classes and doing homework. Even when we weren't in Vermont, I was still often studying for a test or working on a paper. He saw me in my usual day-to-day mode, and saw a place for himself in that life. Which there was. Then I move out here to some strange land, only to discover that there is not really a place in his life for anyone right now. And historically, my bullshit detector (my character judgment function, what have you) has been remarkably accurate. But this one caught me unawares. In his defense, his self-delusion ran so deep, I think, that even he wasn't aware of it until too late.
And so I will comfort myself with this cold analysis of where I went wrong in trusting someone that did not deserve my trust.
Sorry for the broken-heart drivel, but I simply cannot let this be me:
My normal approach HAS to be useful here! It's all I've got!
little things
I just found the coolest new functionality in Firefox 3.
Did you know that if you have a bazillion tabs open in the same window (as I am wont to do), you can scroll through them using your mouse scroll button?! Just mouse over the row of tabs, and scroll off into the sunset.
This is almost as cool as the time I accidentally discovered you can preview documents in Leopard by highlighting them and hitting the space bar. It was like cave man discovering fire, "whoa! what just happened? what is this?!"
Did you know that if you have a bazillion tabs open in the same window (as I am wont to do), you can scroll through them using your mouse scroll button?! Just mouse over the row of tabs, and scroll off into the sunset.
This is almost as cool as the time I accidentally discovered you can preview documents in Leopard by highlighting them and hitting the space bar. It was like cave man discovering fire, "whoa! what just happened? what is this?!"
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
i feel like my secret heart has lost all it's stuffing
I'm (hopefully) taking the physics GRE on Saturday, so that this is me for not too much longer:
Thursday, October 30, 2008
you do realize it is your own failed policies that created the problem in the first place...right?
Every time someone has the audacity, no, animal-level ignorance, to mention "September 11th" and something about national security in the same sentence, it makes me think of this quote from Edward Norton's character in the movie 25th Hour:
"Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on!"That is what I feel like saying to anyone still blabbering on about Sept. 11 like it made the world suddenly so much less secure-- "move the fuck on!" Everybody on this (sort of still) green earth needs a copy of "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. If there is one thing you read this winter, make it that book. I think if our society took mathematics more seriously, we'd be a much different country, in a good way. But that's another ramble for another day I guess...
Friday, October 24, 2008
one of these is not like the other...
Sometimes when I really try to understand racial tensions in this country, and I mean really understand, like on a micro level, I try to imagine how must feel to be the only black person in a room full of white people. Probably somewhat intimidating, probably somewhat jarring. Luckily I do not have to try too hard to understand this feeling--I've gotten pretty used to it myself.
Right now I am the only lady in a lecture room full of a couple dozen people. Really, gals? Am I the only one who finds conservation laws of nonlinear PDEs to be interesting?!
Oh yey! Another lady came in late! Talk is starting...got to go...
Right now I am the only lady in a lecture room full of a couple dozen people. Really, gals? Am I the only one who finds conservation laws of nonlinear PDEs to be interesting?!
Oh yey! Another lady came in late! Talk is starting...got to go...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
samantha and the ring
In "Sex and the City", the movie, there is a small storyline regarding Samantha and a diamond-encrusted ring being sold at auction. She decides to compete in the bidding for the ring, saying, "I work hard, I deserve this." To the external viewer, such a purchase may seem superficial or frivolous. But to Samantha, buying herself that ring was a symbol of her independence, earned by her hard work at her job. She does not need a man to buy her things, she is a completely self-sufficient unit.
I have just bought myself the world's most beautiful coat. (And as opposed to Samantha's ring, it set me back less than $300.) And to me, this is more than just a proper investment in light of the impending cold weather; this is a symbol of my independence. I did not have to rely on my folks for money, like when I was in college; I splurged my very own hard-earned money on a new winter coat. October just so happens to be a three-paycheck month, so I am left with a little more extra money than usually budgeted for--so I went for it and bought the coat of my dreams.
I wonder if the intoxicating allure of buying myself lovely things completely from my own finances will prevent me from going to grad school. (If you want to see the coat, follow this link. The coat is shown in "Look 4".) On the other hand, maybe this year in a 'real' job will make me all-the-happier about going to grad school, if it results in some savings of my own allowing me to live less poor-student-y later...
I have just bought myself the world's most beautiful coat. (And as opposed to Samantha's ring, it set me back less than $300.) And to me, this is more than just a proper investment in light of the impending cold weather; this is a symbol of my independence. I did not have to rely on my folks for money, like when I was in college; I splurged my very own hard-earned money on a new winter coat. October just so happens to be a three-paycheck month, so I am left with a little more extra money than usually budgeted for--so I went for it and bought the coat of my dreams.
I wonder if the intoxicating allure of buying myself lovely things completely from my own finances will prevent me from going to grad school. (If you want to see the coat, follow this link. The coat is shown in "Look 4".) On the other hand, maybe this year in a 'real' job will make me all-the-happier about going to grad school, if it results in some savings of my own allowing me to live less poor-student-y later...
Monday, July 28, 2008
a "cuil" new search engine
Evidently a few ex-Googlers launched a new, competing search engine this morning called "Cuil", pronounced "cool". They claim a web page index that they estimate at three times the size of Google's. Needless to say, I was curious. I went to www.cuil.com to have a look. Frankly, I was disappointed to the point of complete skepticism after two inputs.
To arrive at Cuil in the first place, I Googled it. (Thankfully, the universe did not implode due to my pathologically recursive search engine use.) The first hit for "cuil" was the new search engine site. Google also helpfully brought up a couple news stories for my perusal, about the launch of the new site. Basically, Google brought me exactly what I was looking for. So when I arrived at Cuil, and was faced with a blank text box and no ideas on what to search for, I tried searching Cuil for itself. Only thing is, I didn't get any hits remotely related to the search engine...instead I got a bunch of travel website hits. Evidently Cuil is a location in Scotland or somewhere around there. Sure the site layout at Cuil is, well, cool--it's listed in sort of magazine/newspaper column fashion as opposed to one straight list down the page--but the content was pretty useless to me.
For my next input--I was pretty excited about this one--I tried searching for myself, wondering if my rank on the list of Cuil hits would be better or worse than my place on Google. Only thing is...my input came back with NO hits!! Really, three times the web page index of Google, and they didn't pull a single page for me or any of my many google rivals? This is when I cried "foul!" and decided I'd better get back to coding, as my program just finished reloading...
UPDATE: I checked the site again later in the day, and many inputs that were not working in the morning were then returning hits. Seems like maybe they had some kinks in the morning they had to work out.
To arrive at Cuil in the first place, I Googled it. (Thankfully, the universe did not implode due to my pathologically recursive search engine use.) The first hit for "cuil" was the new search engine site. Google also helpfully brought up a couple news stories for my perusal, about the launch of the new site. Basically, Google brought me exactly what I was looking for. So when I arrived at Cuil, and was faced with a blank text box and no ideas on what to search for, I tried searching Cuil for itself. Only thing is, I didn't get any hits remotely related to the search engine...instead I got a bunch of travel website hits. Evidently Cuil is a location in Scotland or somewhere around there. Sure the site layout at Cuil is, well, cool--it's listed in sort of magazine/newspaper column fashion as opposed to one straight list down the page--but the content was pretty useless to me.
For my next input--I was pretty excited about this one--I tried searching for myself, wondering if my rank on the list of Cuil hits would be better or worse than my place on Google. Only thing is...my input came back with NO hits!! Really, three times the web page index of Google, and they didn't pull a single page for me or any of my many google rivals? This is when I cried "foul!" and decided I'd better get back to coding, as my program just finished reloading...
UPDATE: I checked the site again later in the day, and many inputs that were not working in the morning were then returning hits. Seems like maybe they had some kinks in the morning they had to work out.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
"no really, i think i might pull through this!"
Externally, this has been a bad week so far. There is roofing going on, on top of my apartment building. Luckily I am not on the top floor, but it's still loud enough. It was scheduled to be finished last Friday, but the roofers were still out there this morning when I left for work. They were also out there on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I did not sleep in this weekend. Nevertheless, I tried to be grateful for what is probably a nice, new roof. Not that I will ever see it, but I can imagine nice things about the roof in my head.
Also this weekend, my garbage disposal backed up all over the kitchen. I had so far put a small amount of soggy cereal, and later some blueberries, down the disposal. I think the backup was due to the numbskull previous tenant--what appear to be garlic peels were included in the backup water. I tried drain-o-ing the clog last night, but the first 1/2 of the bottle didn't seem to do the trick. So I poured the rest in, and it's still sitting the pipes today--I'll probably flush it out when I go home for lunch.
Yesterday when I went home for the evening...I pulled back the curtains that cover the glass doors out to my small balcony, only to see that it was covered in old roof shingles! A loud string of expletives followed, as well as a hasty voicemail to my landlord detailing the mess. So much for trying to be grateful.
And at work today, somebody, somewhere on the project, did something that indirectly broke a ton of stuff which I am directly responsible for. And when I say broke, I mean smashed into subatomic particles. =( So this means that I will be getting yelled at if I don't figure out what happened, very, very soon.
But internally, this has been an ok week so far. For some reason, I am still holding it together and feeling ok. But I did need to whine a little first. =)
Also this weekend, my garbage disposal backed up all over the kitchen. I had so far put a small amount of soggy cereal, and later some blueberries, down the disposal. I think the backup was due to the numbskull previous tenant--what appear to be garlic peels were included in the backup water. I tried drain-o-ing the clog last night, but the first 1/2 of the bottle didn't seem to do the trick. So I poured the rest in, and it's still sitting the pipes today--I'll probably flush it out when I go home for lunch.
Yesterday when I went home for the evening...I pulled back the curtains that cover the glass doors out to my small balcony, only to see that it was covered in old roof shingles! A loud string of expletives followed, as well as a hasty voicemail to my landlord detailing the mess. So much for trying to be grateful.
And at work today, somebody, somewhere on the project, did something that indirectly broke a ton of stuff which I am directly responsible for. And when I say broke, I mean smashed into subatomic particles. =( So this means that I will be getting yelled at if I don't figure out what happened, very, very soon.
But internally, this has been an ok week so far. For some reason, I am still holding it together and feeling ok. But I did need to whine a little first. =)
Saturday, July 19, 2008
new blog
To the lady in possession of northerncomposure.blogspot.com: I covet your subdomain. I thought I had stumbled upon the most brilliant and personably applicable play-on-words out there--only to find someone else had already thought of it! To be fair, she is more northerly than I (she's actually in Alaska), and is evidently a mother, so likely has me beat in the composure department as well. I had hoped there was another ready pun out there--and spent a long time with a crossword puzzle-solver on the web, before realizing the futility of my rhyme search and settling on the less obvious, but perhaps more applicable, "northern composer". And thus was born a blog.
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