Sounded like fun...

...so I stole it from thatgirlygirl.

Open iTunes/iPod or Windows Media Player to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrassing it is.

How many songs? 1400 (exactly!)

Sort by artist:
First artist: Aaron Neville
Last artist: Zero 7

Sort by song title:
First: (Do The) Instant Mash - Joe Jackson (Look Sharp!) - apparently parentheses come first in iTunes...
Last: Zoo Station - U2 (Achtung Baby)

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Nr. 3 G Dur Adagio - J.S. Bach (Brandenburgische Konzerte 1-6) - yeah, I'm a dweeb (it gets worse) (0:13)
Longest Song: Symphony No. 9 I. Andante - Mahler (Symphony No. 9) - told you it got worse... (29.27)

Sort by album:
First: 1978-1990 (The Go-Betweens)
Last: World Reggae (various artists)

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Dominos - Office (Q&A)

How many songs come up when you search for "sex?" 0
How many songs come up when you search for "death?" 15 (is that healthy?)
How many songs come up when you search for "love?" 81
How many songs come up when you search for "you?" 83
How many songs come up when you search for "why?" 15
How many songs come up when you search for "God?" 4
How many songs come up when you search for "crazy?" 13
How many songs come up when you search for "f**k?" 0


Your turn.

Wide open Vista...

Remember this? I mentioned it back in June. Not surprisingly MicroSoft were just a little too cocky...

Video games "failing" women?

I find this interesting. The videogames industry believes it has failed women because far fewer of them play videogames. Those that do play tend to play games like The Sims.

My take on it is that it's a good thing that women don't waste enormous amounts of time playing uber violent games. And that when they do opt to play, they play what could be considered far more intelligent games. More men should be that way.

One of the smartest things ever said...

"The public has an insufficient understanding of our ignorance."
Susan Hockfield, president, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

'Tis true. I just came across this quote today, but have been thinking along these lines for the last couple of weeks. Not coincidentally, I started this semester's teaching about two weeks ago. Here's the thing, we often teach out of textbooks, giving the impression (albeit not purposely) that this is gospel. It's not. My postdoc mentor, a very smart man, is fond of telling students that if they want to find a really good research project, just open up a textbook and find somewhere with a sentence that starts "It is well known that..." There's a research project. We really know so very little. I spend much of research time learning just how little. In fact, I've spent the last nine or so years working on an area of proteins where "It is well known that..." I get funded to do this, publish papers on the subject, and have begun to gain a (hopefully positive) reputation for my work. If it's really "well known", really all worked out, then how could that be so? Perhaps "It is well known that..." should be replaced with "We currently believe that...but we could be wrong. Again." At the very least we should be honest about what we do know and what we don't.

Ultimately the people we think are smart and wise aren't that way because they know so much more than we do. The difference between them and everyone else is that they recognize just how little we know.

Making the world a better place, one smile at a time

Baby J has learned to smile. The real thing, not those gas-induced half smiles we parents delude ourselves into thinking are the real thing. There's nothing like a baby smiling at you. They are innocent. They know nothing of the larger world. They don't know about dangerously dim-witted presidents, suicidal terrorists, mid-East strife, global warming, rising gas prices, or any of the thousands of things that stress out adults. The smile of a baby is given without strings attached. It's pure. It lifts the heart and makes you forget, at least for the moment, that some aspects of life can really suck. They cause you to remember that life, for the most part, is actually pretty damn good (at least for me). A baby's smile brings pure, unadulterated joy.


Daughter J: "Mommy, baby J just smiled at me! Fifteen times! And twice with dimples! Okay, maybe just eleven times. But twice with dimples!"




It's contagious. Try it - you actually don't need to be a baby.

Not the stark reminder he thinks it is...

I'd say this was a stark reminder that Bush's war on terror isn't working...

From the "Only in the US" file...

He must have had a HUGE litter box somewhere... Probably has a few rabbit bones in it.


Honestly, how far out of whack can this society get?
(I'll probably regret asking that.)

Mild cheddar cheese

Why?

What's the point? If I'm going to eat something so laden in fat, I want it to at least have some flavor.





Spot the sleep deprived...