I am working on my office Mac, which uses Spaces because I have Matlab running both through my computer and a cluster so I need to be able to easily separate the two. While editing a program I wrote in Matlab, I found that if I type in a "for" command but don't have an "end" command to close the loop, Spaces will automatically change to Spaces section 1.

I just don't get it.

I started listening to Iron & Wine sometime last spring, and in the last 6 months he's become one of my absolute favorite artists, dominating my music playlists--my last.fm profile suggests that in the past 6 months, I have listened to almost 1500 I&W tracks that have been recorded, with the second highest going to Neko at around 500. And 12 of my 15 most listened to tracks is the entirety of The Shepherd's Dog, which is an amazing album. So yeah, pretty much what I listen to.

Yesterday, he released a limited live CD to independent record stores for record store day. It's called Live at Norfolk and it's good and I recommend it. That said, it also gave me a chance to check out "The Trapeze Swinger," which I've heard of but hadn't heard before. Anyway, it's an absolutely breathtakingly amazing song, and guess what? The studio version (it was originally released on a movie soundtrack, and is going to be rereleased on a collection of b-sides that comes out mid-May) is available on Iron & Wine's website. I highly recommend it, but note that it's long--over 9 minutes--and also that it's even better live.

The Decemberists have released an album called The Hazards of Love, which is a complete story in the form of Decemberists music if I understand correctly. And it features Shara Worden as the villain.

I don't know quite what to think; I'm interested in hearing it and it's getting somewhat mixed but leaning towards positive reviews (which sounds pretty normal for The Decemberists; they lean to the odd side), so I might have to check it out.

Awkward email to incoming Penn faculty who I haven't met yet asking if he'll be on my committee is awkward.

Dear students:

You are in college at an Ivy League school. How is it that you do not know how to write complete, coherent sentences? Subject, verb, object. It's really not that hard.

P.S. You don't need to use the phrase "In the dark" four times in a paragraph as well as another time underneath the question itself, and you certainly don't need to both begin and end a sentence with it, or end one sentence with it and begin the next sentence with it.

P.P.S. The worst part is that whenever I read the phrase "in the dark," I read it in my head in the voice of Will Arnett as G.O.B. talking in the video for George Michael's election campaign in season 2 of Arrested Development.

Why does research take so long?

The answer, as far as I can tell, may be related to the fact that these stimuli took up to an hour each to make.

So here I am in my office, while there's really nasty weather outside and most public schools (including my girlfriend's school, so jealous) are canceled. This, of course, reminds me of this comic, although Penn just didn't cancel anything at all. Because they're like that. I remind you of this post from just over two years ago; at least today the roads appear to have been plowed, but it's still nasty outside.

I saw Jorge Cham last Tuesday at Penn. He made a comment at the beginning about how his talk would be almost the same as the one he gave three and a half years ago, and then made a joke about how surely everyone who was around then had graduated by now (to which I sarcastically shouted "No"). It pretty much was exactly the same, but I actually understood so much more of it now that I'm not in my first semester of grad school, like last time. I also got the opportunity to have him sign my copy of the third book, and he drew a picture of Mike Slackenerny after I told him I saw him last time when I was in my first semester. Looking back, I didn't get a drawing last time but he wrote something along the lines of:

"Run while you can
It gets better
Good luck!"

So there's some nice evolution going on in the signings I've received so far. If, at some point in the future, I have a PhD and am some lowly assistant professor or something like that and I see him again with another PHD book for him to sign, I'd totally try and get a picture of Professor Smith.

Oh, and one more, just because.

NEW NEKO FREE STREAMING ONLINE HERE

A plane crash happened last night in Clarence Center, NY, which is part of Clarence, which is where I used to live before moving to Phoenix (it's a bit outside of Buffalo). We're talking about 2 miles away.

That article also mentions my first high school and reactions from people I know. Yeah, that's a little scary.

New Neko Case album (Middle Cyclone) comes out THREE WEEKS from today. What do I do until then? Perhaps read a book, or write a novella.

This is very exciting news. What is perhaps less exciting is that Neko is then going on tour, and stopping just outside of Philadelphia--on Good Friday. She's playing in D.C. earlier that week and playing in NYC the following week, but I will be in D.C. the weekend after Easter so the NYC shows might be pushing it (especially since I won't be getting much sleep while in D.C.--weekend long dancing event), and any weekday concert that involves a 3 hour drive is also pushing it. I'm going to see her live. I just don't know when.

EDIT: I've figured that the best bet is to go to NYC for one of her shows, so I'll be going there the day after Easter and should be able to pull that off.

I *officially* passed my major areas, with my revisions which were due last week being accepted and approved as of this evening! This is expected but still fun and happy news.

Oh yeah, and I'm in my office at 1:30am, damn.

dsjgkndfgnldf THIS IS AMAZING IN EVERY SINGLE WAY

I want this T-shirt.

So, while doing my laundry yesterday, a shirt released some static electricity through my headphones and then into my ears. This does not feel good, I discovered.

That aside, this past week I went to plug my iPod into my computer so I could update it and charge it and, when I plugged it in, there was a spark at the USB port which scared the crap out of me and messed up communication to all the USB devices on my computer (including mouse and keyboard), which scared the crap out of me even more. A restart got everything working right again, but I'm curious as to why that would have happened. I did plug the cable into the iPod and then plug the cable into the USB port, which isn't the way I normally do it, but it was the first time I had charged it since being back in town. This also means that I had pulled the cable out of my bag--where it had been since I packed it up in Phoenix before coming back--prior to plugging it into my computer. Anyway, anything here I should be concerned about not doing in the future?

I received my copy of Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation today after having ordered it back in June. Apparently there were difficulties getting it from the preorder to available status, but it's now regularly available. It is gorgeous, the quality of printing is top notch. It's printed on nice, thick, glossy paper and is all around wonderful. It does lack in terms of any new artwork or other stuff; as far as I can tell, there are two sketches that don't appear online in it and that's all (and it's possible the sketches do appear online and I've just forgotten this); there's also a very short blurb on the back from Neil Gaiman. That said, it's the first 14 chapters, it's less than $20 on Amazon, and it is massively pretty.

For those of you who haven't read Gunnerkrigg Court, now is as good of a time as any to start from the beginning.

Second day of classes and I'm already at my office at 1 am.

I swear, this semester is NOT going to be like next semester. Just after January...or, at least, hopefully even before then. Maybe just after tonight.

Oh, and several semesters I've ended up with West Philly Swingers taking the class I'm TAing. This semester, however, has a first: one of the Swingers is registered in my recitation section (at least, as long as she doesn't drop or switch it). So it's a bit more, since it's a part of the class that I'm actually teaching, not just grading. It'll be kind of entertaining.

So, I passed my major areas on Monday!

I have to revise one paper, but that'll be pretty easy to do, and it's not due until the end of January, so I have plenty of time to do it. With that, the semester has all but ended for me. I've had a bit more TA stuff after that, with a review session and exam prep this past Tuesday, two participants today to finish off my research for the semester, an exam to proctor tomorrow, and like five or six hours of grading tomorrow and Saturday. So things are really wrapping up here, and I get to go back to Phoenix next Tuesday. Things are good. I had the most fun I've had dancing in a long time on Tuesday (I usually have fun dancing, but it was much more fun than usual with the near-nonexistent stress at that point). I took yesterday entirely off, which is very rare.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to read over Christmas break. I'm thinking maybe War and Peace, but that might be a bit ambitious, what with the other stuff I want to do (mostly relaxing stuff). Then again, next semester will be a bit light with the major areas completed, so maybe that wouldn't be a problem if I don't finish before the semester starts.

Oh, and I'm TAing the same class next semester (intro to brain and behavior). I think I'm the only person who says that I'm capable of TAing this class, although I'm most definitely not the only person in psych who could do it. The rest are just lazy liars. Oh well, it won't be as bad the second time around.

Internet memes.

(okay, totally not gonna happen...too bad)

Still doing pretty good! I'm sure I'll be tiring out within the next three and a half hours, but if I can make it to 5:30am, Starbucks will open and I can go for breakfast/caffeine. Moving ahead!