fun, fun...
Dave: [...] Yeah, we haven't taken the kids to a movie in a while. We should probably Netflix a few new things for them. I'm just glad they stopped watching "High School Musical" every day.
Mom: What's that?
Dave: Some made-for-TV Disney thing... every child between 7 and 14 is obsessed with it. THe kids go around the house singing the songs all day long.
Mom: Oh... and what's it called again?
Dave: "High School Musical"
Mom: Oh. I thought you were talking about something else. What's that movie with those guys in high school?
Dave: Umm. Dunno...
Mom: Those guys with the leather jackets. They're in a band or something.
Dave: The Ramones?
Mom: Yeah, The Ramones!
Dave: That's "Rock and Roll High School", Mom. Completely different.
Thursday, September 28
grading...
I need to grade some physics HW this morning. I foolishly had both my Astronomy and Philosophy students hand in their monthly homework journal thingies on the SAME DAY, which kind of eliminates the benefit of my brilliant "only collect HW once a month" plan. Anyway, I need to throw a bone to the Physics kids before I tackle this big pile of journals.
Classes continue to go surprisingly well, despite my cold this week. I've been a little rambly what with the heavy doses of medication, and the part of my brain that connects famous science quotes to the scientist responsible for them just completely shut off yesterday. Three times in one class, it occurred to me to reference some famous science quote, none of which I could properly attribute. Oh well... at least I'm not as stoned as this guy.
(Ok... that's half the grading done. Out of 6 papers graded, two have made the assertion that .6 x 2 = .12)
I need to grade some physics HW this morning. I foolishly had both my Astronomy and Philosophy students hand in their monthly homework journal thingies on the SAME DAY, which kind of eliminates the benefit of my brilliant "only collect HW once a month" plan. Anyway, I need to throw a bone to the Physics kids before I tackle this big pile of journals.
Classes continue to go surprisingly well, despite my cold this week. I've been a little rambly what with the heavy doses of medication, and the part of my brain that connects famous science quotes to the scientist responsible for them just completely shut off yesterday. Three times in one class, it occurred to me to reference some famous science quote, none of which I could properly attribute. Oh well... at least I'm not as stoned as this guy.
(Ok... that's half the grading done. Out of 6 papers graded, two have made the assertion that .6 x 2 = .12)
damn blue collar tweakers...
Well, nothing like a refreshing 2 hours of sleep to have you all ready to start your day. The thing is, I'm not even tired. I'm beginning to suspect that I maybe miscounted the number of hours between dosages of meds last night. Christ... if 2 Sudafed keep me up all night when I accelerate the dosage by an hour or so, imagine how bad the stuff is AFTER you make it into crystal meth!
Well, nothing like a refreshing 2 hours of sleep to have you all ready to start your day. The thing is, I'm not even tired. I'm beginning to suspect that I maybe miscounted the number of hours between dosages of meds last night. Christ... if 2 Sudafed keep me up all night when I accelerate the dosage by an hour or so, imagine how bad the stuff is AFTER you make it into crystal meth!
Wednesday, September 27
books and music and stuff...
I'm about 80% of the way through "Chuck Klosterman IV". I'm not very impressed. It's mostly stale music journalism scraped together from 5 year-old magazine articles. Only now near the end are there some essays about other things. And I hate the font, which is a weird complaint about a book, I know, but really... it's bad.
I picked up a copy of John Hodgman's "The Areas of My Expertise" now that it's out in paperback. It's mostly kind of formulaically stupid, but every so often there is a bit of silly brilliance that makes me giggle uncontrollably. It's kind of like Monty Python that way. Every once in a while, the TiVo grabs an episode of Monty Python, and when I watch it I realize that most of it is just kind of dull and pointless. Everyone just remembers the same half-dozen brilliantly silly skits.
(Speaking of sketch comedy - we watched the pilot of "Studio 60" on Monday, and it was just as good the second time. The best part of the show - the repeated invocation of the skit "Peripheral Vision Man". Even though they never actually SHOW the sketch, anyone who has watched several between-heyday seasons of SNL knows exactly what kind of ill-conceived, unfunny, thin-premised skit it WOULD be without ever seeing it. Fucking brilliant.)
I have about 150 pages to go in "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. Boy, this book has been a chore to get through. It's LONG, and some of the narrative devices are really cumbersome. It's a story told by a women who is recounting some stories being told by her father, which occasionally involve reading long letters written by his mentor in which he describes documents written by Byzantine monks... so you occasionally find yourself nested 4 or 5 narrative levels deep, thinking... "What the fuck am I reading again?" I feel sorry for the editor who had to keep track of all the quotation marks and italics. Anyway, despite all that, it's pretty interesting and I would really like to finish it someday so I can go back and listen to the NPR interview that convinced me to read it in the first place.
I bought the new Indigo Girls album on iTunes, and listened to it once. It seems kinda bland and unmemorable. The only song that stood out was the one with Pink yelling the background vocals. I'll have to force myself to listen to it a few more times this week and give it a chance to escape Forgotten Album Obscurity.
And speaking of forgotten albums, I have to hand it to Apple for the CD-Cover-Browsing feature of iTunes 7. It really is a cool way to riffle through your music collection and be reminded of albums and artists that you've been neglecting. There is just something about the pictures that is different than a text list of album names.
Sigh. Ok. Time for a little rest before the train gets in.
I'm about 80% of the way through "Chuck Klosterman IV". I'm not very impressed. It's mostly stale music journalism scraped together from 5 year-old magazine articles. Only now near the end are there some essays about other things. And I hate the font, which is a weird complaint about a book, I know, but really... it's bad.
I picked up a copy of John Hodgman's "The Areas of My Expertise" now that it's out in paperback. It's mostly kind of formulaically stupid, but every so often there is a bit of silly brilliance that makes me giggle uncontrollably. It's kind of like Monty Python that way. Every once in a while, the TiVo grabs an episode of Monty Python, and when I watch it I realize that most of it is just kind of dull and pointless. Everyone just remembers the same half-dozen brilliantly silly skits.
(Speaking of sketch comedy - we watched the pilot of "Studio 60" on Monday, and it was just as good the second time. The best part of the show - the repeated invocation of the skit "Peripheral Vision Man". Even though they never actually SHOW the sketch, anyone who has watched several between-heyday seasons of SNL knows exactly what kind of ill-conceived, unfunny, thin-premised skit it WOULD be without ever seeing it. Fucking brilliant.)
I have about 150 pages to go in "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. Boy, this book has been a chore to get through. It's LONG, and some of the narrative devices are really cumbersome. It's a story told by a women who is recounting some stories being told by her father, which occasionally involve reading long letters written by his mentor in which he describes documents written by Byzantine monks... so you occasionally find yourself nested 4 or 5 narrative levels deep, thinking... "What the fuck am I reading again?" I feel sorry for the editor who had to keep track of all the quotation marks and italics. Anyway, despite all that, it's pretty interesting and I would really like to finish it someday so I can go back and listen to the NPR interview that convinced me to read it in the first place.
I bought the new Indigo Girls album on iTunes, and listened to it once. It seems kinda bland and unmemorable. The only song that stood out was the one with Pink yelling the background vocals. I'll have to force myself to listen to it a few more times this week and give it a chance to escape Forgotten Album Obscurity.
And speaking of forgotten albums, I have to hand it to Apple for the CD-Cover-Browsing feature of iTunes 7. It really is a cool way to riffle through your music collection and be reminded of albums and artists that you've been neglecting. There is just something about the pictures that is different than a text list of album names.
Sigh. Ok. Time for a little rest before the train gets in.
jesus christ...
Why the hell is everybody around me on this train reading some kind of fucking God book? News flash people... reading is supposed to expose your brain to NEW IDEAS, not just marinate it in the same fucking pot of "chicken soup" over and over and over again. You people with your closed-up little minds and your Dark Ages mentality really scare the crap out of me.
Why the hell is everybody around me on this train reading some kind of fucking God book? News flash people... reading is supposed to expose your brain to NEW IDEAS, not just marinate it in the same fucking pot of "chicken soup" over and over and over again. You people with your closed-up little minds and your Dark Ages mentality really scare the crap out of me.
Tuesday, September 26
party time...
We have a "welcome back faculty" party-type-thing tonight, and as much as a generally loathe social events of any kind, I had been really kind of looking forward to drinking a lot. But seeing as I'll most likely be kind of woozy and feverish and full of cold medicine, I'm thinking that maybe that's not such a good idea after all.
We have a "welcome back faculty" party-type-thing tonight, and as much as a generally loathe social events of any kind, I had been really kind of looking forward to drinking a lot. But seeing as I'll most likely be kind of woozy and feverish and full of cold medicine, I'm thinking that maybe that's not such a good idea after all.
studio 60...
... is so, so good. Yes, you can argue (as an article on Salon did this week) that when you put Sorkin's wordy intellectual dialogue into an environment that lacks the gravitas of a military courtroom or a White House drama it comes off as more than a little pompous and self-important. Especially when the topic at hand is TV comedy writers. Do they really deserve to be elevated in this way? It's a fair argument, but... y'know what? Don't care. It is so, so good.
It's even better the more you know about the mythology of Sorkin himself, his troubles with the networks and his writing "process". To see the character Matt's office with the sofa and the big empty bulletin board and the countdown-to-air clock reminded me of this old quote from an interview with Sorkin way back in the Sports Night days when the other big TV writer on the scene was David E. Kelley...
So knowing a bit about Sorkin's own "method" makes every scene about not having a script written yet that much funnier.
Also, the writing aside, I'll say right now, I am very likely going to become a HUGE fan of Amanda Peet really, really soon. Yeah. I'm pretty sure.
... is so, so good. Yes, you can argue (as an article on Salon did this week) that when you put Sorkin's wordy intellectual dialogue into an environment that lacks the gravitas of a military courtroom or a White House drama it comes off as more than a little pompous and self-important. Especially when the topic at hand is TV comedy writers. Do they really deserve to be elevated in this way? It's a fair argument, but... y'know what? Don't care. It is so, so good.
It's even better the more you know about the mythology of Sorkin himself, his troubles with the networks and his writing "process". To see the character Matt's office with the sofa and the big empty bulletin board and the countdown-to-air clock reminded me of this old quote from an interview with Sorkin way back in the Sports Night days when the other big TV writer on the scene was David E. Kelley...
Last summer, Sorkin said he spoke with Kelley and learned that Kelley is a Zenlike master of personal discipline. Sorkin recalls, "He said, 'Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I write 'Ally McBeal,' Thursday, Friday, Saturday I write 'The Practice,' Sunday I'm with my wife and kids.' And I thought, I have a real schedule, too. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I freak out cuz I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Thursday I start yelling at people because I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Friday I go, 'Ohmigod, there's going to be a half hour of dead air on ABC next week,' and then it finally gets done."
So knowing a bit about Sorkin's own "method" makes every scene about not having a script written yet that much funnier.
Also, the writing aside, I'll say right now, I am very likely going to become a HUGE fan of Amanda Peet really, really soon. Yeah. I'm pretty sure.
Monday, September 25
snif...
The thing is, I don't even really have a very bad cold... I don't really feel that bad at all. But when your job is to stand in front of a room and talk for an hour and a half, it doesn't take much to make that experience fairly unpleasant. A little sore throat, a slight headache, a little stuffiness... suddenly teaching a simple class becomes an extreme endurance sport. Add little medicine-head to the mix and you will very likely find yourself confused and babbling in front of a bemused-looking classroom full of students.
So... that was MY day. Meanwhile, the Boy was sicker than me (with a fever) and stayed home from preschool today. Can't wait for the report from the wife when I get home. It's days like this that you can be happy when your cellphone battery dies.
The thing is, I don't even really have a very bad cold... I don't really feel that bad at all. But when your job is to stand in front of a room and talk for an hour and a half, it doesn't take much to make that experience fairly unpleasant. A little sore throat, a slight headache, a little stuffiness... suddenly teaching a simple class becomes an extreme endurance sport. Add little medicine-head to the mix and you will very likely find yourself confused and babbling in front of a bemused-looking classroom full of students.
So... that was MY day. Meanwhile, the Boy was sicker than me (with a fever) and stayed home from preschool today. Can't wait for the report from the wife when I get home. It's days like this that you can be happy when your cellphone battery dies.
Sunday, September 24
what could be more fun than a state fair...?
... a FIVE STATE fair!!
Because somehow, we wound up living further from our own state fair than the ones next door, I got dragged to The Big E yesterday... (aka, "The Eastern States Expo") a massive state fair that encompasses essntially all of the little states in New England that are too pitifully tiny and/or devoid of rural land to warrant their own state fairs.
It was an all around disaster. I mean... you can't put kids in a car for a three hour drive to Massachusettes, arrive at your destination after what is typically one of their naptimes, and then expect the rest of the day to go well.
And when did state fairs start costing $200? I mean, even if the day had gone WELL, I don't think we would have had $200 worth of fun by a long shot. I do have $200 worth of upset stomach today, though.
Also I have a cold. More bitching about THAT tomorrow, I'm sure.
... a FIVE STATE fair!!
Because somehow, we wound up living further from our own state fair than the ones next door, I got dragged to The Big E yesterday... (aka, "The Eastern States Expo") a massive state fair that encompasses essntially all of the little states in New England that are too pitifully tiny and/or devoid of rural land to warrant their own state fairs.
It was an all around disaster. I mean... you can't put kids in a car for a three hour drive to Massachusettes, arrive at your destination after what is typically one of their naptimes, and then expect the rest of the day to go well.
And when did state fairs start costing $200? I mean, even if the day had gone WELL, I don't think we would have had $200 worth of fun by a long shot. I do have $200 worth of upset stomach today, though.
Also I have a cold. More bitching about THAT tomorrow, I'm sure.
Friday, September 22
getting a little wood today...
I was at Home Depot today picking up a couple sheets of MDF to build some shelves and whatnot in the basement. The funny think about Home Depot is the way its population changes depending on the day and time. If you ever go there in the morning, it's nothing but contractors. If you go there on the weekends, it's full of guys and couples stocking up on supplies for their weekend home improvement projects.
Well today I think is the first time I've ever been there on a weekday afternoon. The other shoppers...? Nothing but HOT stay-at-home soccer-moms as far as the eye can see!
Single guys, take note. It's worth taking a day off work for.
I was at Home Depot today picking up a couple sheets of MDF to build some shelves and whatnot in the basement. The funny think about Home Depot is the way its population changes depending on the day and time. If you ever go there in the morning, it's nothing but contractors. If you go there on the weekends, it's full of guys and couples stocking up on supplies for their weekend home improvement projects.
Well today I think is the first time I've ever been there on a weekday afternoon. The other shoppers...? Nothing but HOT stay-at-home soccer-moms as far as the eye can see!
Single guys, take note. It's worth taking a day off work for.
Thursday, September 21
all along the watchtower...
Some guy at the train station tried to hand me some "literature" this morning, but I rebuffed him. Must be tough to be a Jehovah's Witness in New York, where people will tell a homeless guy with no legs to fuck off.
Slept in a little to take the 7:30 train in. It's amazing the difference in one's mood that results from leaving the house AFTER sunrise. No wonder people get depressed in the winter. I'm tired of the dark already, and it's only the equinox.
Haven't really thought about what I'm doing in class today, but I have until noon. I should really try to do something light and equation-free, as I've pounded them pretty hard with problems for the past two classes. I've actually scrapped a couple of labs, which puts us ahead of schedule. I may be able to get momentum conservation in before midterm, which would make the structure of the semester really fall into place better than it's laid out on the syllabus. Who needs "labs" anyway?
A really attractive woman just sat across from me on the train. Or so I thought at first. Turns out it's just a really average-looking woman with a fashionable suit and trendy glasses and a really expensive haircut. New York is tricky that way. You have to really look closely to tell if people are actually attractive or just well-put-together. In a way, I guess this is good for average-looking people, since it forces you to look far better than you would if you lived and worked in the suburbs. Of course it also means that the competition all look like supermodels. When I leave school at 3:30, I always pass the same supermodel on the sidewalk, wearing clothes that look highly unlikely outside of the pages of a magazine, and walking with that Runway Stomp Walk up 6th avenue. She doesn't even seem human.
In other news, I have tiny papercut-like-cuts on BOTH my thumbs, almost in exactly the same place. I have no idea where they came from. My only guess is that I got them when I was trying to put the new 12 Gb hard drive into Craiggles McFrankentosh. One has to really dig around in there to get the power plug into the back of the drive bay, maybe I cut myself on the edge of something metal in there. But I didn't notice the cuts until 6 hours later, so maybe that WASN'T it. It's all very strange.
The elementary school "open house" was a little pointless last night. I don't really care what time they have recess, y'know? It was good to see the books they are using, I guess, to verify that they aren't too far off from the Girl's reading level. (She's reading "Island of the Blue Dolphins" now, which seems to me like something kids read in middle school.) The funniest thing was the little "surveys" the kids had filled out and put up on the bulletin board... "Favorite Pet, Favorite Book, Favorite TV Show"... and we were told by our daughter to guess which one was hers. Most of the answers are pretty standard, so it was tough until we spotted "Favorite TV Show: Everybody Loves Raymond". Nice. "Hello, we're Mr. and Mrs. DrDave, THE WORST PARENTS EVER!!"
I volunteered once again to come give a guest-scientist talk to the class when they are talking about matter and energy. I'll have to start thinking now about what I would do. Astronomy is one thing, but it's not as easy to make physics stuff interesting and accessible to 3rd graders. Hell, it's not easy to make that stuff interesting and accessible to my college students. I really like the idea of trying to explain conservation principles to 8 year-olds, though.
Some guy at the train station tried to hand me some "literature" this morning, but I rebuffed him. Must be tough to be a Jehovah's Witness in New York, where people will tell a homeless guy with no legs to fuck off.
Slept in a little to take the 7:30 train in. It's amazing the difference in one's mood that results from leaving the house AFTER sunrise. No wonder people get depressed in the winter. I'm tired of the dark already, and it's only the equinox.
Haven't really thought about what I'm doing in class today, but I have until noon. I should really try to do something light and equation-free, as I've pounded them pretty hard with problems for the past two classes. I've actually scrapped a couple of labs, which puts us ahead of schedule. I may be able to get momentum conservation in before midterm, which would make the structure of the semester really fall into place better than it's laid out on the syllabus. Who needs "labs" anyway?
A really attractive woman just sat across from me on the train. Or so I thought at first. Turns out it's just a really average-looking woman with a fashionable suit and trendy glasses and a really expensive haircut. New York is tricky that way. You have to really look closely to tell if people are actually attractive or just well-put-together. In a way, I guess this is good for average-looking people, since it forces you to look far better than you would if you lived and worked in the suburbs. Of course it also means that the competition all look like supermodels. When I leave school at 3:30, I always pass the same supermodel on the sidewalk, wearing clothes that look highly unlikely outside of the pages of a magazine, and walking with that Runway Stomp Walk up 6th avenue. She doesn't even seem human.
In other news, I have tiny papercut-like-cuts on BOTH my thumbs, almost in exactly the same place. I have no idea where they came from. My only guess is that I got them when I was trying to put the new 12 Gb hard drive into Craiggles McFrankentosh. One has to really dig around in there to get the power plug into the back of the drive bay, maybe I cut myself on the edge of something metal in there. But I didn't notice the cuts until 6 hours later, so maybe that WASN'T it. It's all very strange.
The elementary school "open house" was a little pointless last night. I don't really care what time they have recess, y'know? It was good to see the books they are using, I guess, to verify that they aren't too far off from the Girl's reading level. (She's reading "Island of the Blue Dolphins" now, which seems to me like something kids read in middle school.) The funniest thing was the little "surveys" the kids had filled out and put up on the bulletin board... "Favorite Pet, Favorite Book, Favorite TV Show"... and we were told by our daughter to guess which one was hers. Most of the answers are pretty standard, so it was tough until we spotted "Favorite TV Show: Everybody Loves Raymond". Nice. "Hello, we're Mr. and Mrs. DrDave, THE WORST PARENTS EVER!!"
I volunteered once again to come give a guest-scientist talk to the class when they are talking about matter and energy. I'll have to start thinking now about what I would do. Astronomy is one thing, but it's not as easy to make physics stuff interesting and accessible to 3rd graders. Hell, it's not easy to make that stuff interesting and accessible to my college students. I really like the idea of trying to explain conservation principles to 8 year-olds, though.
Wednesday, September 20
blogging mcnuggets...
Classes are still going suspiciously well. I keep waiting for things to crash and burn, but they never do.
Tonight is "open house" at my daughter's school. There is also a Book Fair in progress that my wife is in charge of. (Yes, she is one of THOSE people.) I'm not sure what this all means, but I think it involves complicated shuffling back-and-forth of children between us.
The wife has a cold, and has been so unpleasant for the past couple of says that I think it would be an improvement in my life if *I* got the cold instead.
We had a discussion in our science meeting today about what sorts of activities should count as "scholarship" here at a school where we don't really have the facilities or the funds to perform "real" research. The consensus seems to be... all these things we do INSTEAD of research, we need to convince the University that those things ARE our research.
I filmed some stuff in class today that I might use in a presentation in November. I used a 2 camera setup - my video camera and my webcam so I could edit together multiple angles. I ran out of both tape and HD space before class was over. The whole thing was also interrupted by a fire drill.
I talked to my mom on the phone last night. She asked what I wanted for my birthday and I said money. New video iPod, here we come! I've already started pre-emptively ripping DVDs to load up on that baby.
All I've eaten all day is 4 Altoids and half a bagel.
I came in this morning to find Craiggles McFrankentosh locked up on the screensaver. I restarted it and turned the screensaver off. I figure, the monitor I'm using with it already has a obvious "Windows NT Server Edition" login screen burned into it, so... the screen is beyond saving at this point. It's turning out to be one temperamental fucking machine, though. I should make sure the OS has all its updates.
Dozed off here for a minute. Sleepy.
I just restarted my computer because none of my command keys, not even the RETURN key were responding to keypresses. When the same thing kept happening after a restart, I nearly had a panic attack. Turns out my "Num Lock" was on, and I couldn't see the light the way the machine was angled. D'oh! Is there away to disable that fucking button? I've already disabled my caps-lock, and it's the best damned computing decision I ever made.
Ok... Home.
Tuesday, September 19
not that i don't agree with you, Frenchie, but maybe you should have confronted the dude about his "approach", you know... BEFORE he was skewered by a stingray...
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Marine explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau said Tuesday that while he mourns the recent death of "The Crocodile Hunter," Steve Irwin, he disagrees with Irwin's hands-on approach to nature television.
While promoting his new two-part TV special, "Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures - America's Underwater Treasures," Cousteau called Irwin's death "very, very unfortunate."
He had "a lot of respect" for Irwin, who he didn't know personally, and his "environmental message," Cousteau said.
But, he added, Irwin would "interfere with nature, jump on animals, grab them, hold them, and have this very, very spectacular, dramatic way of presenting things. Of course, it goes very well on television. It sells, it appeals to a lot people, but I think it's very misleading. You don't touch nature, you just look at it. And that's why I'm still alive. I've been diving over 61 years - a lot many more years that he's been alive - and I don't mess with nature."
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Marine explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau said Tuesday that while he mourns the recent death of "The Crocodile Hunter," Steve Irwin, he disagrees with Irwin's hands-on approach to nature television.
While promoting his new two-part TV special, "Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures - America's Underwater Treasures," Cousteau called Irwin's death "very, very unfortunate."
He had "a lot of respect" for Irwin, who he didn't know personally, and his "environmental message," Cousteau said.
But, he added, Irwin would "interfere with nature, jump on animals, grab them, hold them, and have this very, very spectacular, dramatic way of presenting things. Of course, it goes very well on television. It sells, it appeals to a lot people, but I think it's very misleading. You don't touch nature, you just look at it. And that's why I'm still alive. I've been diving over 61 years - a lot many more years that he's been alive - and I don't mess with nature."
ugg..
No more staying up past midnight. I am very, very sleepy.
I promised myself I'd write some this morning. I have a new personal book project I'm starting. It's all outlined already, and I was going to devote a 15-minute "writing sprint" to it every day. Instead I've mostly napped on the train. Yawn. Anyway, I'm excited about the project. Ask me about it some other time.
Gonna run some errands today... down to the NYU library to pay some fines, maybe up to Best Buy to pick up the new Indigo Girls album. (Old habits...)
No more staying up past midnight. I am very, very sleepy.
I promised myself I'd write some this morning. I have a new personal book project I'm starting. It's all outlined already, and I was going to devote a 15-minute "writing sprint" to it every day. Instead I've mostly napped on the train. Yawn. Anyway, I'm excited about the project. Ask me about it some other time.
Gonna run some errands today... down to the NYU library to pay some fines, maybe up to Best Buy to pick up the new Indigo Girls album. (Old habits...)
Monday, September 18
when "faking it" works...
This new class is really weird. It fills me with an overpowering sense of dread when I'm preparing for it, but then once the class actually gets started, things go surprisingly well. I think the unfulfilled dread is the result of a couple of things. First, I forget that even when I'm teaching somewhat out of my specific area of expertise, I still know a hell of a lot more than a bunch of 20 year olds. They are very unlikely on any given day to probe a topic deeply enough to reveal that I don't really know what I'm talking about. Second, I've had unfounded worries that this class will be covering ideas with which the students (mostly juniors and seniors) are already familiar. It doesn't, and they aren't. Lastly, I have no confidence in the tools of circle time, and no ability to guess how long circle-time discussions and small-group activities will take. Well, it turns our these kids are totally into the small group stuff, and everything takes TWICE as long as I thought it would. So I go in thinking I don't have enough planned, and wind up having to totally leave stuff out.
Anyway, the upshot... the worry-producing class is just fine. In face, I should spend some time thinking about the other ones for a while.
This new class is really weird. It fills me with an overpowering sense of dread when I'm preparing for it, but then once the class actually gets started, things go surprisingly well. I think the unfulfilled dread is the result of a couple of things. First, I forget that even when I'm teaching somewhat out of my specific area of expertise, I still know a hell of a lot more than a bunch of 20 year olds. They are very unlikely on any given day to probe a topic deeply enough to reveal that I don't really know what I'm talking about. Second, I've had unfounded worries that this class will be covering ideas with which the students (mostly juniors and seniors) are already familiar. It doesn't, and they aren't. Lastly, I have no confidence in the tools of circle time, and no ability to guess how long circle-time discussions and small-group activities will take. Well, it turns our these kids are totally into the small group stuff, and everything takes TWICE as long as I thought it would. So I go in thinking I don't have enough planned, and wind up having to totally leave stuff out.
Anyway, the upshot... the worry-producing class is just fine. In face, I should spend some time thinking about the other ones for a while.
tv news and reviews...
The Amazing Race premiered last night. Looks pretty good. One dysfunctional snippy couple to hate already. One disabled person who preaches "I can do anything I put my mind to" one minute and then pulls the "Please, we need this taxi - I HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL LEG" card the next. (Reminds me of the rude little little-person from a few seasons back.) Two competing groups of dumb perky blondes* (beauty queens versus cheerleaders!!) and one group of former-drug-addict male-model mimbos. And the white-trash Kentucky coal miner couple who yell at each other a lot. (And whose hick accent frequently requires SUBTITLES... a bad sign.) Actually, oddly enough, I was finding Team Kentucky surprisingly endearing by the end of the show.
The first team to go was the Black Muslim Guys. I'm kinda disappointed. I was entertained by how smoothly they moved back and forth from hip-hoppy dialect to Arabic. And curious how long before their constant "Allah al akbar"s were going to get them detained at an airport or beat up by the redneck coal miner. Alas, it was not to be. The second couple to go was the non-descript Indian couple. Anyway. It seems to have all the ingredients of a good season.
Survivor didn't really live up to the hype. Nobody really stood out to me much on the first episode except for Cao Boi (**) with his crazy Medicine Man crap. When I saw the reaction of his tribemates to the weird forehead ritual he performed on the guy with the headache, I told my wife - "Man, they are gonna get tired of his crazy Mr. Miyagi bullshit REAL quick." It'll be interesting to see how they conduct things with 4 fairly small teams... the race teams can't last long before they have to start merging. It'll also be interesting to compare the alliances after the merge. My early prediction - the racial alliances will quickly redistribute along gender lines after the merge. Just a hunch. It'll also be interesting to see how the Secret Immunity Idol plays out this season, as last time it was in the hands of somebody who didn't really need it for the whole season. Anyway... it usually takes Survivor 5 or 6 weeks to really get rolling, so... the verdict is out.
Tonight is Studio 60. I'm sure I'll watch the premiere, even though I've already seen it. Grey's Anatomy starts this week also. After seeing the previews, the wife is already excited about some romantic scene with the Robin Boy Wonder/veterinarian guy. I'm already excited about Sandra Oh in her lacy red undies. See... SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! Perfect television.
Yay, September!
(*) ok, only 3/4 of them are blonde
(**) Yes, it's pronounced "cowboy". Ick.
The Amazing Race premiered last night. Looks pretty good. One dysfunctional snippy couple to hate already. One disabled person who preaches "I can do anything I put my mind to" one minute and then pulls the "Please, we need this taxi - I HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL LEG" card the next. (Reminds me of the rude little little-person from a few seasons back.) Two competing groups of dumb perky blondes* (beauty queens versus cheerleaders!!) and one group of former-drug-addict male-model mimbos. And the white-trash Kentucky coal miner couple who yell at each other a lot. (And whose hick accent frequently requires SUBTITLES... a bad sign.) Actually, oddly enough, I was finding Team Kentucky surprisingly endearing by the end of the show.
The first team to go was the Black Muslim Guys. I'm kinda disappointed. I was entertained by how smoothly they moved back and forth from hip-hoppy dialect to Arabic. And curious how long before their constant "Allah al akbar"s were going to get them detained at an airport or beat up by the redneck coal miner. Alas, it was not to be. The second couple to go was the non-descript Indian couple. Anyway. It seems to have all the ingredients of a good season.
Survivor didn't really live up to the hype. Nobody really stood out to me much on the first episode except for Cao Boi (**) with his crazy Medicine Man crap. When I saw the reaction of his tribemates to the weird forehead ritual he performed on the guy with the headache, I told my wife - "Man, they are gonna get tired of his crazy Mr. Miyagi bullshit REAL quick." It'll be interesting to see how they conduct things with 4 fairly small teams... the race teams can't last long before they have to start merging. It'll also be interesting to compare the alliances after the merge. My early prediction - the racial alliances will quickly redistribute along gender lines after the merge. Just a hunch. It'll also be interesting to see how the Secret Immunity Idol plays out this season, as last time it was in the hands of somebody who didn't really need it for the whole season. Anyway... it usually takes Survivor 5 or 6 weeks to really get rolling, so... the verdict is out.
Tonight is Studio 60. I'm sure I'll watch the premiere, even though I've already seen it. Grey's Anatomy starts this week also. After seeing the previews, the wife is already excited about some romantic scene with the Robin Boy Wonder/veterinarian guy. I'm already excited about Sandra Oh in her lacy red undies. See... SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! Perfect television.
Yay, September!
(*) ok, only 3/4 of them are blonde
(**) Yes, it's pronounced "cowboy". Ick.
Sunday, September 17
local celebrity...
Took the kids to Target today, and I noticed in the rear view mirror that Paul Sr. was following us all the way home on his bike.
It's funny... I never really watched the show before I moved here, but somehow I always kinda just assumed that "Orange County Choppers" was near Los Angeles somewhere, not in Orange County, NY. But their shop is just a few miles from where I live. I'm not a big fan of the show, but it's funny to see them around all the time. He seems nice enough... he never seems to tire of waving to people anyway.
Took the kids to Target today, and I noticed in the rear view mirror that Paul Sr. was following us all the way home on his bike.
It's funny... I never really watched the show before I moved here, but somehow I always kinda just assumed that "Orange County Choppers" was near Los Angeles somewhere, not in Orange County, NY. But their shop is just a few miles from where I live. I'm not a big fan of the show, but it's funny to see them around all the time. He seems nice enough... he never seems to tire of waving to people anyway.
Saturday, September 16
crikey...
This afternoon I found myself engaged in an Animal-Planet-inspired argument with the two children about whether or not the guy on the TV is THE Crocodile Hunter, and if that's the one who got killed by a stingray, and "I thought there was a different Crocodile Hunter", and "Who is the new Crocodile Hunter?"
My daughter seems to think there is some sort of protocol for "succession"... as if maybe now the Secretary of Alligators steps up to take over.
This afternoon I found myself engaged in an Animal-Planet-inspired argument with the two children about whether or not the guy on the TV is THE Crocodile Hunter, and if that's the one who got killed by a stingray, and "I thought there was a different Crocodile Hunter", and "Who is the new Crocodile Hunter?"
My daughter seems to think there is some sort of protocol for "succession"... as if maybe now the Secretary of Alligators steps up to take over.
Friday, September 15
crappy day... "happy" ending....
Drove to the post office in the rain. Came out. Car wouldn't start. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuckitty fuck. Turn key, lots of blinky lights, no clicking, no nothing. Pull a bunch of fuses... nothing.
Call the wife to come w/ jumper cables. Hook them up, battery terminal is pretty corroded, not sure if I'm making a good connection... OH! have I mentioned it's raining?
It's raining.
Give up, go home, wait for rain to stop and for auto place across the street to open. They can't get to it until Monday. Fuck.
Buy some battery terminal cleaner at the hardware store, head out again with the van and some jumper cables and some tools. Clean the terminals, unscrew the posts, scrape clean with a screwdriver, screw them back in...
Car starts.
Well...
Ok.
Good.
God dammit.
Drove to the post office in the rain. Came out. Car wouldn't start. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuckitty fuck. Turn key, lots of blinky lights, no clicking, no nothing. Pull a bunch of fuses... nothing.
Call the wife to come w/ jumper cables. Hook them up, battery terminal is pretty corroded, not sure if I'm making a good connection... OH! have I mentioned it's raining?
It's raining.
Give up, go home, wait for rain to stop and for auto place across the street to open. They can't get to it until Monday. Fuck.
Buy some battery terminal cleaner at the hardware store, head out again with the van and some jumper cables and some tools. Clean the terminals, unscrew the posts, scrape clean with a screwdriver, screw them back in...
Car starts.
Well...
Ok.
Good.
God dammit.
NIN + star trek + sexual tenison = ...
... fucking brilliance.
I have to say, I've never really understood the underground cottage industry of homoerotic fan-fiction, especially those involving Kirk and Spock, but this video suddenly makes it all clear.
... fucking brilliance.
I have to say, I've never really understood the underground cottage industry of homoerotic fan-fiction, especially those involving Kirk and Spock, but this video suddenly makes it all clear.
Thursday, September 14
judgement call...
I had to give a pretty important lecture today in Physics class - introducing the basic equations of accelerated motion. It's not incredibly difficult stuff, but it's hard enough that some students don't get it right away (or at all). And if you don't get these basic ideas of velocity and acceleration down during the first few weeks, NOTHING else makes sense... projectile motion doesn't make sense, F=ma doesn't make sense... and students never recover.
I was very careful about putting together the lecture so I wouldn't stumble over any math at any point. I think I went just a tiny bit too fast, but I think it went pretty well. But when I looked at my watch after solving a few sample problems, I saw that there were still 20 minutes left in class. I looked around at the students, who were still hanging in there, but just barely. That's when I realized I had a decision to make. The decision...? "Ok, you know what...? You guys are FULL. Go away, and I'll see you next week."
Part of good teaching... knowing when to quit.
I had to give a pretty important lecture today in Physics class - introducing the basic equations of accelerated motion. It's not incredibly difficult stuff, but it's hard enough that some students don't get it right away (or at all). And if you don't get these basic ideas of velocity and acceleration down during the first few weeks, NOTHING else makes sense... projectile motion doesn't make sense, F=ma doesn't make sense... and students never recover.
I was very careful about putting together the lecture so I wouldn't stumble over any math at any point. I think I went just a tiny bit too fast, but I think it went pretty well. But when I looked at my watch after solving a few sample problems, I saw that there were still 20 minutes left in class. I looked around at the students, who were still hanging in there, but just barely. That's when I realized I had a decision to make. The decision...? "Ok, you know what...? You guys are FULL. Go away, and I'll see you next week."
Part of good teaching... knowing when to quit.
the good, the bad, the 37...
Fitness update - somehow, despite the entire bag of Butterfingers I've consumed this week, the scale this morning read 197. This is two pounds less than the last time I checked. I have no explanation for this anomaly.
It's a damp, rainy morning today. I allowed myself the luxury of "sleeping in" until 6:30, since I don't have any classes until noon. As I lay in bed around 6:15, I noticed that my right arm was aching - from my middle finger all the way up to my shoulder. It usually stops at the elbow. I got out of bed and dug around the house for some Aleve. I turn 37 next month, and already I'm medicating my arthritis pain. It's just not right. By 47 I'll be wearing fucking Depends.
Fitness update - somehow, despite the entire bag of Butterfingers I've consumed this week, the scale this morning read 197. This is two pounds less than the last time I checked. I have no explanation for this anomaly.
It's a damp, rainy morning today. I allowed myself the luxury of "sleeping in" until 6:30, since I don't have any classes until noon. As I lay in bed around 6:15, I noticed that my right arm was aching - from my middle finger all the way up to my shoulder. It usually stops at the elbow. I got out of bed and dug around the house for some Aleve. I turn 37 next month, and already I'm medicating my arthritis pain. It's just not right. By 47 I'll be wearing fucking Depends.
science geekery...
Not content to let the biologists over at Tangled Bank have all the fun, Charles Daney over at Science and Reason has founded a new blog carnival - a monthly collection of the best weblog writing on natural science and mathematics called "Philosophia Naturalis". The first edition is up now. There is nothing by yours truly in this issue (although I did help by suggesting the name!) but I hope to become a regular contributor in the future. I always promise to write more about science here... this will be a good excuse.
Not content to let the biologists over at Tangled Bank have all the fun, Charles Daney over at Science and Reason has founded a new blog carnival - a monthly collection of the best weblog writing on natural science and mathematics called "Philosophia Naturalis". The first edition is up now. There is nothing by yours truly in this issue (although I did help by suggesting the name!) but I hope to become a regular contributor in the future. I always promise to write more about science here... this will be a good excuse.
Wednesday, September 13
it's alive!!
Picked up my Craigslist keyboard and mouse this morning in front of the Whole Foods. It was like a shady drug deal going down... very amusing. Got back to the office and booted everything up. Seems to all work fine. Something is going on with the whole system going to sleep and me being unable to get anything back on the screen, but I think this may be a problem with the monitor, which I scavenged from a hallway. This whole setup is an example of what the tech guy at my old school used to refer to as a FrankenMac.
Anyway. Craig still needs a job to do. I'll have to work up some many-body simulations for him to work on. Because it's all for nothing if I don't get something that I can at least PRETEND is productive out of the damned thing.
Picked up my Craigslist keyboard and mouse this morning in front of the Whole Foods. It was like a shady drug deal going down... very amusing. Got back to the office and booted everything up. Seems to all work fine. Something is going on with the whole system going to sleep and me being unable to get anything back on the screen, but I think this may be a problem with the monitor, which I scavenged from a hallway. This whole setup is an example of what the tech guy at my old school used to refer to as a FrankenMac.
Anyway. Craig still needs a job to do. I'll have to work up some many-body simulations for him to work on. Because it's all for nothing if I don't get something that I can at least PRETEND is productive out of the damned thing.
worse than ebay...
I'm on a VERY early train this morning, because I have to get to Union Square by 8:15 to pick up an apple keyboard and mouse that I'm buying off of Craigslist. ($20!!) This Craigslist shit is crazy... it's so much more dangerous than eBay, because I think there are more people just looking to get RID of crap, rather than make some kind of profit. Add that to the whole "no-shipping" factor, and it turns out that stuff is a lot cheaper on Craigslist overall than you're gonna find on eBay. In my experience so far, anyway.
So, hopefully the blue Craigslist G3 will soon have a Craigslist keyboard and a Craigslist mouse to make it complete. Perhaps I'll just nickname this computer "Craig".
I'm on a VERY early train this morning, because I have to get to Union Square by 8:15 to pick up an apple keyboard and mouse that I'm buying off of Craigslist. ($20!!) This Craigslist shit is crazy... it's so much more dangerous than eBay, because I think there are more people just looking to get RID of crap, rather than make some kind of profit. Add that to the whole "no-shipping" factor, and it turns out that stuff is a lot cheaper on Craigslist overall than you're gonna find on eBay. In my experience so far, anyway.
So, hopefully the blue Craigslist G3 will soon have a Craigslist keyboard and a Craigslist mouse to make it complete. Perhaps I'll just nickname this computer "Craig".
Tuesday, September 12
i'm sorry, is all this talk of galileo interrupting your nap...?
So, what exactly this the proper etiquette when it comes to dealing with a student who has fallen so soundly asleep in your class that not even the rustle and bustle of the other 15 students filing out of the room is enough to awaken him? I briefly considered making use of the crumpled sheet of notebook paper I was holding in my fist (I had just used it to demonstrate Galileo's law of freefall) to bean the little slacker upside his head. Luckily one of the other students I was speaking to after class gave him a nudge on her way out so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
The scariest thing about teaching college is that you could give me a sheet of paper right now in the second week of class, and I could predict each student's final grade, seal it in an envelope for 3 months, and when you compared it to their actual grade at the end of the course I'm guessing I'd be dead right about 75% of the time.
Anyone else have a prediction for Mr. Van Winkle here...?
So, what exactly this the proper etiquette when it comes to dealing with a student who has fallen so soundly asleep in your class that not even the rustle and bustle of the other 15 students filing out of the room is enough to awaken him? I briefly considered making use of the crumpled sheet of notebook paper I was holding in my fist (I had just used it to demonstrate Galileo's law of freefall) to bean the little slacker upside his head. Luckily one of the other students I was speaking to after class gave him a nudge on her way out so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
The scariest thing about teaching college is that you could give me a sheet of paper right now in the second week of class, and I could predict each student's final grade, seal it in an envelope for 3 months, and when you compared it to their actual grade at the end of the course I'm guessing I'd be dead right about 75% of the time.
Anyone else have a prediction for Mr. Van Winkle here...?
i was right! there is a gadget!
What news from the Stevenote today? Well, we have a bigger capacity iPod (80 gig!) a bigger nano (8 gig) in new colors and a smaller shuffle. (So tiny! Go look!) We have a redesigned iTunes interface where you can flip thru the CD's in your collection by cover art, as if you were... well, flipping through the CD's in your collection. You can now buy movies thru iTunes for $9.99 - $12.99, and everything including the TV shows has been upgraded from iPod-sized to 640x480. But, there is one more thing...
They are calling it "iTV", even though that's not going to be its real name. It's a thin silver TV-set-top box with a whole bunch of inputs and HDTV outputs and stuff. Somehow it lets you share all the media from your computer (wirelessly?) so you can watch/listen to it on your TV. Not terribly revolutionary, but the interface is very glossy and Apple-y, and it's gonna be $299, and I want one.
Anyway, it won't be out until early 2007, but still... yay for new Apple doodads. It's nice to have something fun coming out to look forward to, even if the wife won't let me buy one right away.
So, what's the latest word on VISTA, all you Windozers? Bwaa-ha-haaa....
What news from the Stevenote today? Well, we have a bigger capacity iPod (80 gig!) a bigger nano (8 gig) in new colors and a smaller shuffle. (So tiny! Go look!) We have a redesigned iTunes interface where you can flip thru the CD's in your collection by cover art, as if you were... well, flipping through the CD's in your collection. You can now buy movies thru iTunes for $9.99 - $12.99, and everything including the TV shows has been upgraded from iPod-sized to 640x480. But, there is one more thing...
They are calling it "iTV", even though that's not going to be its real name. It's a thin silver TV-set-top box with a whole bunch of inputs and HDTV outputs and stuff. Somehow it lets you share all the media from your computer (wirelessly?) so you can watch/listen to it on your TV. Not terribly revolutionary, but the interface is very glossy and Apple-y, and it's gonna be $299, and I want one.
Anyway, it won't be out until early 2007, but still... yay for new Apple doodads. It's nice to have something fun coming out to look forward to, even if the wife won't let me buy one right away.
So, what's the latest word on VISTA, all you Windozers? Bwaa-ha-haaa....
train clusterfuck...
I decided to skip my regular train this morning and wait 15 minutes to allow the sun to rise and the ground to warm before I left the house. (I'm wearing a coat this morning. A COAT!!) But when I got to the station, I saw a lot of familiar-looking faces standing around. Turns out my regular train died and was cancelled. (Maybe I had a premonition!) Now the later train is carrying 2 commuterloads full of people. It's crowded, but I seem to avoided playing kneesies with anyone here in the facing seats. I got a little help from the guy sitting diagonally from me, who is about 6'4". Together we send the clear message - "Our many knees and laptops will not accomodate you, please move along."
In other news, I really need to stop buying computer gear I don't need. In just the past week or so, I have purchased...
A G3 Mac Tower ($30) - I've said enough about this machine already.
A USB keyboard ($18) - for the G3 of course. I bought it on eBay.
A 12 Gig internal HD ($7) - also for the G3. Because 2 internal drives? Never enough. Not when there are SO MANY EMPTY BAYS in there! Never mind that I have no idea what I'm putting on that machine. Besides, seven dollars is practically free!
An external USB HD enclosure ($7.99) - This is the best one, because it most clearly illustrates the true nature of this disease. I bought this external drive enclosure because of the irresistible $7.99 price (with free shipping!). The thing is, this is a 2.5" drive enclosure, and I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER OWNED ANY 2.5" DRIVES! But you see... I could... someday. And if and when I do, I will be able to enclose it.
Anyway, it doesn't seem like much when taken one item at a time, but when it all adds up to $63... it's time to just say no.
Speaking of "just say no"... the weight loss regimen is in jeopardy, because the wife went to the grocery store hungry and came home with unhealthy foodthings that call to me silently from the kitchen cabinet. It makes me so fucking angry when she does this. One of these days I'm going to sit her down in front of the TV and make her re-watch the West Wing episode where Leo McGarrey talks about his alcoholism, only I'm going to dub the audio and everywhere replace the word "scotch" with the word "Butterfinger".
NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
(Shit, it's about to get reeeeeeal crowded in here. Aah! The wall of knees has been breached!!)
Tuesdays are gonna be pretty low-key this semester. One class, at noon, with time before and time after to plan and work and photocopy and whatnot. I think I know what I'm doing in class today, at least in a vague sort of way. I should use the extra time in the afternoon to plan for TOMORROW, though... that's gonna be the difficult thing to get into my head. It's gonna be a long semester. I had good reasons for switching my 2/3 schedule to a 3/2 schedule (it will give me the summers to plan for my heavier semester) but for this year, it means 2 back to back semesters that I'm teaching 3 classes. Which may not seem like much, but I'm doing so much wheel-reinvention in these classes, it winds up being a lot of work.
Anyway, I'm here now. Time to do something.
I decided to skip my regular train this morning and wait 15 minutes to allow the sun to rise and the ground to warm before I left the house. (I'm wearing a coat this morning. A COAT!!) But when I got to the station, I saw a lot of familiar-looking faces standing around. Turns out my regular train died and was cancelled. (Maybe I had a premonition!) Now the later train is carrying 2 commuterloads full of people. It's crowded, but I seem to avoided playing kneesies with anyone here in the facing seats. I got a little help from the guy sitting diagonally from me, who is about 6'4". Together we send the clear message - "Our many knees and laptops will not accomodate you, please move along."
In other news, I really need to stop buying computer gear I don't need. In just the past week or so, I have purchased...
A G3 Mac Tower ($30) - I've said enough about this machine already.
A USB keyboard ($18) - for the G3 of course. I bought it on eBay.
A 12 Gig internal HD ($7) - also for the G3. Because 2 internal drives? Never enough. Not when there are SO MANY EMPTY BAYS in there! Never mind that I have no idea what I'm putting on that machine. Besides, seven dollars is practically free!
An external USB HD enclosure ($7.99) - This is the best one, because it most clearly illustrates the true nature of this disease. I bought this external drive enclosure because of the irresistible $7.99 price (with free shipping!). The thing is, this is a 2.5" drive enclosure, and I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER OWNED ANY 2.5" DRIVES! But you see... I could... someday. And if and when I do, I will be able to enclose it.
Anyway, it doesn't seem like much when taken one item at a time, but when it all adds up to $63... it's time to just say no.
Speaking of "just say no"... the weight loss regimen is in jeopardy, because the wife went to the grocery store hungry and came home with unhealthy foodthings that call to me silently from the kitchen cabinet. It makes me so fucking angry when she does this. One of these days I'm going to sit her down in front of the TV and make her re-watch the West Wing episode where Leo McGarrey talks about his alcoholism, only I'm going to dub the audio and everywhere replace the word "scotch" with the word "Butterfinger".
NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
(Shit, it's about to get reeeeeeal crowded in here. Aah! The wall of knees has been breached!!)
Tuesdays are gonna be pretty low-key this semester. One class, at noon, with time before and time after to plan and work and photocopy and whatnot. I think I know what I'm doing in class today, at least in a vague sort of way. I should use the extra time in the afternoon to plan for TOMORROW, though... that's gonna be the difficult thing to get into my head. It's gonna be a long semester. I had good reasons for switching my 2/3 schedule to a 3/2 schedule (it will give me the summers to plan for my heavier semester) but for this year, it means 2 back to back semesters that I'm teaching 3 classes. Which may not seem like much, but I'm doing so much wheel-reinvention in these classes, it winds up being a lot of work.
Anyway, I'm here now. Time to do something.
Monday, September 11
class, apple, tv, apple...
Today's morning class went about as well as an unprepared seminar on a topic I know little about could go. The afternoon astronomy class was a MESS, though. I don't know why. For some reason, the ideas weren't coming out of my head in any sort of reasonable order. Oh well... I'll prepare an organized recap for the beginning of Wednesday's class.
Didn't get all the way thru the startup process on the Mac yet. It's not gonna let me around the product registration, so I'll need to wait until I have a Mac keyboard hooked up to it. Unless I can figure out how to switch over to OS-9. Meh... I know it works now, it can wait a few weeks.
I don't think anything I want to see starts TODAY, but the fact remains... NEW TV STARTS THIS WEEK!!! I think Survivor is the first biggie, then Amazing Race this weekend, Studio 60 on Monday, Grey's Anatomy next week... better get the TiVo all cleaned off.
Speaking of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", the new Aaron Sorkin show, we actually already saw the pilot episode via Netflix. It was pretty good... pretty intensely Sorkiny. It's also pretty meta-entertaining if you know a little background on the show's creator. The show revolves around a faltering TV network and opens with the producer of its flagship late-night sketch comedy show going off on a tirade about how everything on television sucks and panders to the lowest common denominator, after which the new network president heads out and re-hires the brilliant writer/director pair that had been fired from the network years ago for drug problems (among other things) to come back and save the network by injecting some intelligence and class back onto television.
Wow, Aaron. Autobiographical, much? I can't believe that not only has NBC allowed you to make your new show a thinly-veiled account of your own heroic return to television in the same new show, but has allowed you to open that new show with a rant-by-fictional-proxy about how everything else on their network sucks. Fucking brilliant. Watch it.
Oh and the other big news this week... well, I don't exactly know what the news is, but Apple is having one of their "unveiling" events tomorrow, so look for me to be all excited about some gadget or something tomorrow afternoon. It could just be that they are announcing movies through the iTunes store, but I'm hoping there is also a gadget involved. Apple is overdue for a new gadget.
Today's morning class went about as well as an unprepared seminar on a topic I know little about could go. The afternoon astronomy class was a MESS, though. I don't know why. For some reason, the ideas weren't coming out of my head in any sort of reasonable order. Oh well... I'll prepare an organized recap for the beginning of Wednesday's class.
Didn't get all the way thru the startup process on the Mac yet. It's not gonna let me around the product registration, so I'll need to wait until I have a Mac keyboard hooked up to it. Unless I can figure out how to switch over to OS-9. Meh... I know it works now, it can wait a few weeks.
I don't think anything I want to see starts TODAY, but the fact remains... NEW TV STARTS THIS WEEK!!! I think Survivor is the first biggie, then Amazing Race this weekend, Studio 60 on Monday, Grey's Anatomy next week... better get the TiVo all cleaned off.
Speaking of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", the new Aaron Sorkin show, we actually already saw the pilot episode via Netflix. It was pretty good... pretty intensely Sorkiny. It's also pretty meta-entertaining if you know a little background on the show's creator. The show revolves around a faltering TV network and opens with the producer of its flagship late-night sketch comedy show going off on a tirade about how everything on television sucks and panders to the lowest common denominator, after which the new network president heads out and re-hires the brilliant writer/director pair that had been fired from the network years ago for drug problems (among other things) to come back and save the network by injecting some intelligence and class back onto television.
Wow, Aaron. Autobiographical, much? I can't believe that not only has NBC allowed you to make your new show a thinly-veiled account of your own heroic return to television in the same new show, but has allowed you to open that new show with a rant-by-fictional-proxy about how everything else on their network sucks. Fucking brilliant. Watch it.
Oh and the other big news this week... well, I don't exactly know what the news is, but Apple is having one of their "unveiling" events tomorrow, so look for me to be all excited about some gadget or something tomorrow afternoon. It could just be that they are announcing movies through the iTunes store, but I'm hoping there is also a gadget involved. Apple is overdue for a new gadget.
blue mac progress report...
Got in this morning to find the Mac stuck on the same login screen. Popped in an OS9 system disk, booted off the CD. Checked the specs - 512 MB of ram and two 8.5 GB hard drives. Not too shabby. Ran "disk first aid" to double check the file structures and whatnot... everything came out fine. Trashed a handfull of preference files and rebooted. This time OS X came up, and it got stuck on "Waiting for Authentication Service"... PROGRESS!!
After checking the HD and making sure there was nothing on it worh saving, I pulled out an OS X install disc to do a clean reinstall of the operating system.
I just clicked restart... Happy Mac Icon...directory services... whee! It zipped thru the rest of the login screen. Now it's playing the crazy "Welcome to Macintosh" movie. Ok, now it wants me to fill in registration info, and I don't have a keyboard. This could be tricky...
Anyway... things seem to be working.
(I really have no time for this today!)
Got in this morning to find the Mac stuck on the same login screen. Popped in an OS9 system disk, booted off the CD. Checked the specs - 512 MB of ram and two 8.5 GB hard drives. Not too shabby. Ran "disk first aid" to double check the file structures and whatnot... everything came out fine. Trashed a handfull of preference files and rebooted. This time OS X came up, and it got stuck on "Waiting for Authentication Service"... PROGRESS!!
After checking the HD and making sure there was nothing on it worh saving, I pulled out an OS X install disc to do a clean reinstall of the operating system.
I just clicked restart... Happy Mac Icon...directory services... whee! It zipped thru the rest of the login screen. Now it's playing the crazy "Welcome to Macintosh" movie. Ok, now it wants me to fill in registration info, and I don't have a keyboard. This could be tricky...
Anyway... things seem to be working.
(I really have no time for this today!)
Sunday, September 10
Thursday, September 7
this new (old) mac...
So, I lugged this machine across town this afternoon (thank god for the curvy handles!) and hooked it to a spare monitor in the science lab. Plug it in, turn in on and... Ping! This is good. Then, the blinking question mark. This is BAD. But after a few seconds of blinking, it seems to find a startup folder and starts booting into OS-X. It's taking a looooooong time. Then it gets stuck about halfway through on "Waiting for Application Services...". I'm not even 100% sure what "application services" ARE or where they are supposed to arrive from or how long we should sit here and wait for them. At 15 minutes I give up and restart. Same thing... "Waiting for Application Services..." and waiting and waiting. Hmm.
I plugged in an ethernet cable just in case maybe some system software was looking for an IP address... nothing. I could try to boot from an external CD instead, but I can't find a fucking USB keyboard to hook up to the damned thing, so I can't hold down "C" or "cmd-ctrl-opt-something-or-other" to make it look for a bootable volume in the CD-drive, so I'm stuck... waiting.
I finally had to leave to catch my train. As far as I know, the G3 is still sitting there waiting to be served it's application. It now has until Monday morning. I hope to not find the damned thing still stuck there after 4 days. I considered bringing it home with me to fuck with, but I really don't think the wife needs to know that I bought a 6 year old Macintosh on Craigslist. The new Mac is a secret Mac. It will live in the science supply room.
I'm frustrated that I can't get the damned thing booted it up so I can see its fucking SPECS. I know it's 400 MHz, I know it has at least 128M of Ram and a 9 Gig HD, those are the base specifications for this model. I know it has at least one additional internal HD, cuz I peeked inside, but I didn't dig deep enough to be able to read the stickers on things or count SIMMs. The guy who sold it to me got it from his dad who used to use it in some kind of "internet company". I'm guessin' it's pretty maxed out inside, since it has 2 ATI video cards in it and an UltraWide SCSI PCI card. Only a super nerd would have the PCI slots so full and need to run two additional monitors. I'm hoping for at least 256 Meg of Ram and maybe 20 gig of HD space total in there. The optical drive is clearly aftermarket too... maybe a DVD? Who knows...
The other funny thing (ok, not so much "funny" as "only understandable to complete Mac nerds") is that it has BOTH FireWire ports and an ADB port. I had no idea those ever co-existed on a single Mac. Weird. It's like finding a raccoon fossil in the Jurassic. Or something.
Anyway, as disappointed as I am that I don't have it working just yet... really, how much fun would it have been if it booted right up on the first try? None. It's much more satisfying to get a cool Mac for $30 bucks and have to work a little Dr. Dave Magic on it to get the thing purring. You can count on progress reports next week, even though I'm sure nobody finds this interesting but me.
So, I lugged this machine across town this afternoon (thank god for the curvy handles!) and hooked it to a spare monitor in the science lab. Plug it in, turn in on and... Ping! This is good. Then, the blinking question mark. This is BAD. But after a few seconds of blinking, it seems to find a startup folder and starts booting into OS-X. It's taking a looooooong time. Then it gets stuck about halfway through on "Waiting for Application Services...". I'm not even 100% sure what "application services" ARE or where they are supposed to arrive from or how long we should sit here and wait for them. At 15 minutes I give up and restart. Same thing... "Waiting for Application Services..." and waiting and waiting. Hmm.
I plugged in an ethernet cable just in case maybe some system software was looking for an IP address... nothing. I could try to boot from an external CD instead, but I can't find a fucking USB keyboard to hook up to the damned thing, so I can't hold down "C" or "cmd-ctrl-opt-something-or-other" to make it look for a bootable volume in the CD-drive, so I'm stuck... waiting.
I finally had to leave to catch my train. As far as I know, the G3 is still sitting there waiting to be served it's application. It now has until Monday morning. I hope to not find the damned thing still stuck there after 4 days. I considered bringing it home with me to fuck with, but I really don't think the wife needs to know that I bought a 6 year old Macintosh on Craigslist. The new Mac is a secret Mac. It will live in the science supply room.
I'm frustrated that I can't get the damned thing booted it up so I can see its fucking SPECS. I know it's 400 MHz, I know it has at least 128M of Ram and a 9 Gig HD, those are the base specifications for this model. I know it has at least one additional internal HD, cuz I peeked inside, but I didn't dig deep enough to be able to read the stickers on things or count SIMMs. The guy who sold it to me got it from his dad who used to use it in some kind of "internet company". I'm guessin' it's pretty maxed out inside, since it has 2 ATI video cards in it and an UltraWide SCSI PCI card. Only a super nerd would have the PCI slots so full and need to run two additional monitors. I'm hoping for at least 256 Meg of Ram and maybe 20 gig of HD space total in there. The optical drive is clearly aftermarket too... maybe a DVD? Who knows...
The other funny thing (ok, not so much "funny" as "only understandable to complete Mac nerds") is that it has BOTH FireWire ports and an ADB port. I had no idea those ever co-existed on a single Mac. Weird. It's like finding a raccoon fossil in the Jurassic. Or something.
Anyway, as disappointed as I am that I don't have it working just yet... really, how much fun would it have been if it booted right up on the first try? None. It's much more satisfying to get a cool Mac for $30 bucks and have to work a little Dr. Dave Magic on it to get the thing purring. You can count on progress reports next week, even though I'm sure nobody finds this interesting but me.
12. across (4 letters) shut the ____ up...!!
There are few things that people do on the train that annoy me more than DOING THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE TOGETHER OUT LOUD!! Jesus Christ people. "A divining rod is also a... do___ing... do... dolling rod? It's a dolling rod or something, right? Doh-? Dolling rod?"
DOWSING ROD!! IT'S A DOWSING ROD!! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP IT!!!
There are few things that people do on the train that annoy me more than DOING THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE TOGETHER OUT LOUD!! Jesus Christ people. "A divining rod is also a... do___ing... do... dolling rod? It's a dolling rod or something, right? Doh-? Dolling rod?"
DOWSING ROD!! IT'S A DOWSING ROD!! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP IT!!!
effectively friday...
Tired this morning. I could have slept in. My class isn't until noon. And yet here I am on a 6:30 train... getting into the office at 8:00. I like my mornings. Work gets done then.
Squinted through the too-bright bathroom light this morning to check the scale... 199. I'm down a second belt loop... you'd think those 2" of belt would be the equivalent of 2" in jeans size. You'd be wrong. I'm in pants limbo. My 38's are falling off of me, and my 36's are buttonable-yet-suffocating. But I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about every ounce I gain and lose...
Tomorrow I have "off". Which means no teaching, but I probably have to get up with the kids and get them ready for school. Work is definitely better. I should really develop a Friday schedule... some time for house projects, some time for writing, some time for playing the drums or yoga or painting or... whatever. Those 6 or 7 hours the kids are in school SEEM like a lot, but if you alternate fucking around on the computer and taking naps, they can evaporate pretty quickly. I should really take advantage of this schedule and use the time to produce something professionally.
Oh, speaking of which.... I finally heard something back about my book chapters. The big academic publisher has chosen a DIFFERENT small freelance publisher to organize and oversee the project, and they are starting over from scratch. They sent out an email to all the contributers that were involved in version 1.0 which basically said - "Well, maybe we'll hire you and maybe we won't, and maybe we can re-use some of that you've written already, or maybe not..." Lovely. They also said, in effect, not to come bitching to them about the original contracts and the fact that you never got paid... take it up with the original editors. Sounds like I'm not the only one who got stiffed.
My eyes are all watery and allergic this morning. What the hell kind of Fall allergens are in the air right now? Fuck.
Class today should be fairly straightforward... Aristotle, heaviness and lightness, natural motions, the geocentric cosmos and the aether, Copernicus, Galileo and gravity, Galileo and motion, kinematics versus dynamics, defining "constant velocity", discriminating between velocity and speed, scalars and vectors... I should be able to stretch that out to 1h40m. I can prep for Monday's classes instead.
As for now, I think it's time to nap away the last few train stops.
Tired this morning. I could have slept in. My class isn't until noon. And yet here I am on a 6:30 train... getting into the office at 8:00. I like my mornings. Work gets done then.
Squinted through the too-bright bathroom light this morning to check the scale... 199. I'm down a second belt loop... you'd think those 2" of belt would be the equivalent of 2" in jeans size. You'd be wrong. I'm in pants limbo. My 38's are falling off of me, and my 36's are buttonable-yet-suffocating. But I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about every ounce I gain and lose...
Tomorrow I have "off". Which means no teaching, but I probably have to get up with the kids and get them ready for school. Work is definitely better. I should really develop a Friday schedule... some time for house projects, some time for writing, some time for playing the drums or yoga or painting or... whatever. Those 6 or 7 hours the kids are in school SEEM like a lot, but if you alternate fucking around on the computer and taking naps, they can evaporate pretty quickly. I should really take advantage of this schedule and use the time to produce something professionally.
Oh, speaking of which.... I finally heard something back about my book chapters. The big academic publisher has chosen a DIFFERENT small freelance publisher to organize and oversee the project, and they are starting over from scratch. They sent out an email to all the contributers that were involved in version 1.0 which basically said - "Well, maybe we'll hire you and maybe we won't, and maybe we can re-use some of that you've written already, or maybe not..." Lovely. They also said, in effect, not to come bitching to them about the original contracts and the fact that you never got paid... take it up with the original editors. Sounds like I'm not the only one who got stiffed.
My eyes are all watery and allergic this morning. What the hell kind of Fall allergens are in the air right now? Fuck.
Class today should be fairly straightforward... Aristotle, heaviness and lightness, natural motions, the geocentric cosmos and the aether, Copernicus, Galileo and gravity, Galileo and motion, kinematics versus dynamics, defining "constant velocity", discriminating between velocity and speed, scalars and vectors... I should be able to stretch that out to 1h40m. I can prep for Monday's classes instead.
As for now, I think it's time to nap away the last few train stops.
Wednesday, September 6
the good, the bad, the crashy...
My philosophy of science class went kinda ok today. I succeeded in scaring away some freshman and sophomores, but I got a couple of adds too, so I think the class has 16 students, which is still a few too many for my tastes. For this kind of class anyway. But my astronomy class was fucking awesome... I swear... I am so much better in front of a class of 30 students than in front of 14. I think at around 20 students, the mood crosses some sort of personal/performance line that I really prefer to be on the "performance" side of.
The only other thing worth noting is that my Mac crashed right in the middle of my philosophy of science class today... and I mean a hard "kernel panic" crash that I've only seen 3 times since switching to OSX four fucking years ago. It sucks. Oh well... no podcast today, kids.
Anyway. One more class tomorrow. I'll talk about Aristotle, and then I'll be done with week one. I'll be glad. Things don't feel... right... this week. I need to get back into my groove. The groove is not there just yet. Today's astro class may have helped a little. How Dr. Dave Got His Groove Back? Stay tuned, I guess...
My philosophy of science class went kinda ok today. I succeeded in scaring away some freshman and sophomores, but I got a couple of adds too, so I think the class has 16 students, which is still a few too many for my tastes. For this kind of class anyway. But my astronomy class was fucking awesome... I swear... I am so much better in front of a class of 30 students than in front of 14. I think at around 20 students, the mood crosses some sort of personal/performance line that I really prefer to be on the "performance" side of.
The only other thing worth noting is that my Mac crashed right in the middle of my philosophy of science class today... and I mean a hard "kernel panic" crash that I've only seen 3 times since switching to OSX four fucking years ago. It sucks. Oh well... no podcast today, kids.
Anyway. One more class tomorrow. I'll talk about Aristotle, and then I'll be done with week one. I'll be glad. Things don't feel... right... this week. I need to get back into my groove. The groove is not there just yet. Today's astro class may have helped a little. How Dr. Dave Got His Groove Back? Stay tuned, I guess...
day 2...
I have way to much to do this morning to blog too much... documents to finish, Keynote presentations to tidy up... then many many photocopies to make once I get to school. And the thing is... I really, really don't feel like it. I'm not sure what's going on this semester. I think the summer was too long. I can't really get my head back into this mode of - "Having something prepared to SAY every day".
Yesterday's class was so-so. That'll pick up on Thursday. I'm dealing with a know-it-all already, though. This student needs a smackdown. One of these guys who has read some books by Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene or whoever, and therefore things he knows something about physics. (While the diagnostic quiz I gave them reveals that he can't even answer most basic Newton's Law questions.) I'm just waiting to use the phrase - "No, you just believe that because you read it in a book somewhere... explain to me HOW WE KNOW that is true." Anyway... he's a freshman and needs to learn how to contribute to class in a productive way, as opposed to just talking whenever he feels like he has something to say, no matter how peripherally it is related to the topic at hand. Hopefully he is not too dense to read the fairly explicit cues that I am neither impressed nor amused.
The philosophy class starts today. I shall try not to panic. The astronomy class also starts today. I shall try not to doze off. I have a science meeting in between, during which I will have to pretend to pay attention while working on slide transitions. I'm going to need to go to bed early tonight.
Fitness update - 200 pounds at night wearing pajamas. I'm going to guess that this means 198 naked in the morning, but I can't weigh myself in the morning anymore, cuz I get up when it's still dark and the wife is still asleep. But the belt-loop suggests that progress is still being made.
For some reason they are running old, dirty, train cars this morning... it smells like hobos in here.
Ok. Enough of that. Off to work on some stuff.
I have way to much to do this morning to blog too much... documents to finish, Keynote presentations to tidy up... then many many photocopies to make once I get to school. And the thing is... I really, really don't feel like it. I'm not sure what's going on this semester. I think the summer was too long. I can't really get my head back into this mode of - "Having something prepared to SAY every day".
Yesterday's class was so-so. That'll pick up on Thursday. I'm dealing with a know-it-all already, though. This student needs a smackdown. One of these guys who has read some books by Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene or whoever, and therefore things he knows something about physics. (While the diagnostic quiz I gave them reveals that he can't even answer most basic Newton's Law questions.) I'm just waiting to use the phrase - "No, you just believe that because you read it in a book somewhere... explain to me HOW WE KNOW that is true." Anyway... he's a freshman and needs to learn how to contribute to class in a productive way, as opposed to just talking whenever he feels like he has something to say, no matter how peripherally it is related to the topic at hand. Hopefully he is not too dense to read the fairly explicit cues that I am neither impressed nor amused.
The philosophy class starts today. I shall try not to panic. The astronomy class also starts today. I shall try not to doze off. I have a science meeting in between, during which I will have to pretend to pay attention while working on slide transitions. I'm going to need to go to bed early tonight.
Fitness update - 200 pounds at night wearing pajamas. I'm going to guess that this means 198 naked in the morning, but I can't weigh myself in the morning anymore, cuz I get up when it's still dark and the wife is still asleep. But the belt-loop suggests that progress is still being made.
For some reason they are running old, dirty, train cars this morning... it smells like hobos in here.
Ok. Enough of that. Off to work on some stuff.
Tuesday, September 5
back to school...
So, this is it. First day of class. Everyone is off to a new school year today, except the wife, who will no doubt be spending the day alternately sleeping and doing the Empty House Dance. It's funny how similar the back-to-school routines are for the kids and me... new clothes, new school supplies. I'm not bringing my stuffed bunny and my pillow for naptime, but... somedays I probably should.
Things are starting slowly for me, thank god. One class today... it's not until noon... plenty of time to think and photocopy and whatnot. I am running into some logistical problems already. For one thing, the program I was going to use to record my lectures this semester is asking me for a registration code. I could have sworn I paid for this thing already, but no evidence of that transaction is turning up, so... maybe I imagined it. So, I'll have to deal with THAT this morning.
I should also kinda figure out what I'm going to DO here on the first day. So far all I have planned is a course intro, a diagnostic physics quiz, and some rambling on about units and measurements. Not sure if that fills 1:40 or not.
I've come up with some additional assignments to scare away students from my Philosophy of Science class. I'm also planning to offer anyone who wants to switch to my Astro class an "overtally" slip. I'd rather have 5 more students in my 30-student lecture than to have sophomores and freshmen in my 18-student upper level seminar.
I dunno. I'm finding it hard to get excited about this semester. Two of my courses are boring, and the third one is intimidating. I'm already looking ahead to future semesters, which doesn't usually happen until midterm.
So, this is it. First day of class. Everyone is off to a new school year today, except the wife, who will no doubt be spending the day alternately sleeping and doing the Empty House Dance. It's funny how similar the back-to-school routines are for the kids and me... new clothes, new school supplies. I'm not bringing my stuffed bunny and my pillow for naptime, but... somedays I probably should.
Things are starting slowly for me, thank god. One class today... it's not until noon... plenty of time to think and photocopy and whatnot. I am running into some logistical problems already. For one thing, the program I was going to use to record my lectures this semester is asking me for a registration code. I could have sworn I paid for this thing already, but no evidence of that transaction is turning up, so... maybe I imagined it. So, I'll have to deal with THAT this morning.
I should also kinda figure out what I'm going to DO here on the first day. So far all I have planned is a course intro, a diagnostic physics quiz, and some rambling on about units and measurements. Not sure if that fills 1:40 or not.
I've come up with some additional assignments to scare away students from my Philosophy of Science class. I'm also planning to offer anyone who wants to switch to my Astro class an "overtally" slip. I'd rather have 5 more students in my 30-student lecture than to have sophomores and freshmen in my 18-student upper level seminar.
I dunno. I'm finding it hard to get excited about this semester. Two of my courses are boring, and the third one is intimidating. I'm already looking ahead to future semesters, which doesn't usually happen until midterm.
Monday, September 4
Sunday, September 3
because my wife is only a "feminist" when it's convenient...
I picked up a 1300 psi electric power washer when I was at Target with the kids today, because it's on clearance for cheap this week, and because the front of the house is very dirty.
Unfortunately, I think I've inadvertently added to the list of Man Jobs around the house.
Damn.
I picked up a 1300 psi electric power washer when I was at Target with the kids today, because it's on clearance for cheap this week, and because the front of the house is very dirty.
Unfortunately, I think I've inadvertently added to the list of Man Jobs around the house.
Damn.
Friday, September 1
storage galore...
My 300 gig HD came yesterday. I popped it into my Firewire/USB enclosure, formatted it, and immediately started backing up and archiving stuff. I'll be keeping 2 full backups (even month/odd month) of my laptop, and using the rest of the space for working with digital video.
I've also decided to offload some infrequently-listened-to music that I've downloaded here and there onto the iBook. That way I can still stream the music to the Tivo or Rendezvous-share it with my PowerBook, but I won't have it clogging up my everyday machine.
Anyway, I've gone from 2 gig free on my laptop to 12 gig free, which makes me very happy.
My 300 gig HD came yesterday. I popped it into my Firewire/USB enclosure, formatted it, and immediately started backing up and archiving stuff. I'll be keeping 2 full backups (even month/odd month) of my laptop, and using the rest of the space for working with digital video.
I've also decided to offload some infrequently-listened-to music that I've downloaded here and there onto the iBook. That way I can still stream the music to the Tivo or Rendezvous-share it with my PowerBook, but I won't have it clogging up my everyday machine.
Anyway, I've gone from 2 gig free on my laptop to 12 gig free, which makes me very happy.
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