Grad-Blog
I Finally Get It
Now that I've read
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I can finally get
Ayn Rand references in the Simpsons.
What You Have
It's amazing to discover what you don't know you have while cleaning your closet. I've had for a while a pretty nice USB keyboard from Apple that I wanted to use with my PC. The keyboard's cable is short, so for the past few days I've been thinking about buying an extension cable. But today while cleaning out my closet I made the startling discovery that the keyboard had come with an extension cable that I had forgotten about. So the moral of this story is...uh...I guess...clean your closet.
Books
Here's something new I'm trying: A list of
books that I've read. The idea is that after a while when the list gets fairly long people can marvel on how well read I am. Or, maybe not.
My Rising Popularity on the Web
I don't get much spam in my gmail account, but this past month I've received a couple of interesting unsolicited email. One was from another Chris Cowan commenting on how cool we are (for being Chris Cowans I guess) and gave me a link to his (way cooler than mine)
website. Another was from someone who had known another Chris Cowan from Troup, TX, had come across my website and was wondering if I was the same person.
I guess I'm getting some pretty broad exposure. I'm even ranked 9th on Google for the
search "chris cowan". Man, I need to work harder so that I'm first, so everyone reading this needs to link to my school website
http://www.math.tamu.edu/~ccowan/.
I Love Grapes
What can I say? Grapes from the
Giumarra Vineyards are good. I love eating them. Really good. Really really awesome. Tasty. Good texture. Not too tart. You should buy some. Eat some grapes. Not those other tart, icky grapes that sit right next to them in the produce section. Just look for the Grape King. That's right, the Grape King. There's a picture of him right on the bag. So go, right now.
Led Zeppelin III According to iTunes
iTunes reports the song titles for
Led Zeppelin III as
- Immigrant Song
- It's Gonna Work Out Fine
- Nutbush City Limits
- A Fool In Love
- I Want To Take You Higher
- Poor Fool
- Come Together
- Stagger Lee & Billy
- I'm Blue (The Ikettes)
- River Deep, Mountain High
Nutbush City Limits?!? What the hell? Oh, and I never knew, after years of listening to this album, that Led Zepplin covered a Beatles song (Come Together for the uninitiated). I guess one out of ten is not too bad. It's The Digital Music Revolution at its finest (by the way, CDs are digital too).
Here's another thing I find amusing.The
top rated iMixes on the iTunes Music Store are all petitions to make The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Radiohead, Linkin Park, etc. available. There seems to be a special emphasis on AC/DC. Hey! If you want to listen to AC/DC on your iPod, you can buy the stupid CD and just rip it. It's not that hard, and plus you won't have a DRM encumbered file. Or just listen to the radio. They play that crap all the time. Humph.
The Jibblies
Every thing you wanted to know about
the jibblies.
Super
I've had this
Supersystem song playing in my head for a while.
Space Aliens
"Up above aliens hover making home movies for the folks back home..." That's a line from Radiohead's song
Subterranean Homesick Alien
from
OK Computer.
I'm playing
The Simpsons: Hit & Run and a part of the plot is space aliens are filming human activity for a reality TV show back on their home planet.
Supermarket Music
Supermarket music is pretty bland. I've always pitied the artists that get played there, because I think it says something about the quality of their music (though they might be getting some nice royalty checks). Now I have to go and change all my theories because I heard a song from the
Postal Service at H.E.B.. I've heard them played at more hip places around town (like the trendy pizza place across from school), but I was devastated to hear them at H.E.B.. Well, I'll still listen to my CD of theirs with pride, and hope that this is the first wave of good supermarket music.
Tattoo
There's a girl who's a math gradauate student here that has a
Mobius band tattoo on her lower back. Simply amazing.
Bike!
Check it out! I got a new
bike. Now I'm extremely mobile. Just think of all the cool places I can ride to with this baby. And as a bonus, for a limited time only, I get to ride in the 100 degree weather were having in Texas!
The Plunge
Tomorrow I take the plunge: I'm going to sell my car. I'm going to try a bike for a while, at least to go to school, and work on saving for a new car. Now I just got look out for a sweet deal on a Jetta.
