Author: Gary

You will notice up above I’ve added a banner image which lists the last three songs I’ve played on iTunes. Its not exactly what I want, but its close and it seems to work.

It is hooked up via an iTunes plugin that sends my music to Last.fm. The problem I’ve had with this in the past is if you listen to an album or an artist and let it play while your gone, you wind up with that one artist massively over represented in the music you listen to.

If you look at what it has listed for me, Queen is listed pretty high. Way too high. I like Queen, but not as much as it would indicate.

What I’ve done the last few days is let iTunes play on random while I’m away from home from my entire music collection. Its sort of fun to go to my site and see what the last songs played have been when I’m not there to listen.

Like 5 years ago I had a shoutcast stream running out of my house that I could listen to wherever I was. I should do that again, I’m just not sure how to do it when you have DSL running using NAT.

On a somewhat related note, there is a sort of release party for the new Philip Glass CD in Minneapolis on Tuesday at the Caterpillar Lounge on Nicollett. I’m thinking of going.

The test was easy.

I’m writing this in lecture. Its a wednesday night class so we have to have a lecture after the test because its a 3 hour class. So I’m multitasking as I listen to the prof talk about dissolved O2 and CO2 levels in seawater.

I almost feel bad taking this class. Almost.

In 30 minutes I have a test in Oceanography. I have not taken any notes, I only purchased the book a few hours ago, and didn’t even have access to the class website until an hour ago.

I am supremely confident going in.

Why? Becuase its a freshman course designed for people who are not going into science. Everything is pretty much stuff I’ve had before, often several times before.

Why am I taking it? Because I never took at 1000 level course before and you need so many departmental credits, of which 4 credits can be from a 1000 level course. As there aren’t really any 4 credit courses outside of 1000 level courses, I’m here. I’d much rather take something else, but rules are rules.

My lab TA is in 2 of my other courses.

I watched the NDT (National Debate Tournament) special on College Sports TV tonight. I’m glad they do a show on the NDT because it can provide a small glimpse to people who have never been in debate what it is about.

Debate was a huge part of my life for a long time, both as a debater and a coach. I know a lot of people that read this site were/are the same way.

Its something that I’m glad to be done with and miss all at the same time. It’s like a cruel girlfriend that you don’t want to leave.

If you have no exposure to academic debate, I’ll I can say is that if you can get your kids to do one thing when they’re in high school, get them to join the debate team. If possible, have them do policy debate. (and I hate to break this to the LD people, but policy is about 100x more intense and rewarding than LD can ever be).

I really enjoyed Serenity. I’ve never seen Firefly or Buffy the Vampire Slayer for that matter, so my appreciation wasn’t that of a fanboy. I think they have a goldmine franchise here if they so choose to exploit it. If Firefly was even close to the quality of this movie, the decision by FOX might go down as one of the worst in the history of television.