Ahem.
I am 100% convinced that my shitty GRE scores were the reason that I didn’t get into any US schools for grad school. BUT LOOK WHO HAS TWO MASTERS DEGREES AND IS SUCCESSFULLY TEACHING MATH/STATS AT A UNIVERSITY NOW, HUH?
Sorry, it’s been a decade and I’m still bitter about the fact that the GRE results outweighed everything else that was stellar about my undergrad performance.
And I’m finally going to say that my undergraduate performance was stellar, ‘cause it fucking was.
Fight me, standardized testing.
Also, for anyone else going into STEM who thinks the GRE belongs in the toilet and should not be used as a factor for deciding admission: check here.
WHO NEEDS STRINGS
Love it.
This brings me back to high school when our band played an arrangement of this song for the class of 2005 graduation ceremony (our 2006 class got something much less cool; I think it was a Pirates of the Caribbean medley, ‘cause that was super popular back then).
I wish I would have kept the sheet music. The 3rd clarinet part was super cool.
(Also, sorry not sorry for all the music posts lately. Blame the Sennheisers.)
Blugh.
Is the semester over yet?
It’s a hipster party / who could ask for more / everybody’s vegan, leave your plaid shirts at the door
I had a shit day, but this is hilarious.
The comments are full of people arguing about beards, so yeah.
Oh, Twitter
Man, it’s been a while since I’ve seen something that made me just go “HAH” out loud. I love it.
Ben Bailey
So a few days ago I was listening to Brian Regan on Youtube, right? Because of that, I had a new recommended video today:
I clicked on it ‘cause I thought “what the hell” and definitely wasn’t expecting to find it as enjoyable as I did. Starts out a little slow, but definitely picks up. His restless leg syndrome bit and the whole road rage thing at the end is pretty great. Give him a try!
WLIIA
I’ve been watching a lot of clips of Whose Line Is It Anyway on YouTube lately. Here’s a set of three videos highlighting the times when the crew (mostly Drew) end up laughing uncontrollably (mostly because of Colin).
Wayne completely losing it in the background of some of these is great.
Regan
I’ve posted a decent amount of Brian Regan-related material on here already, but I was working on notes/practice problems in my office this afternoon and wanted something to listen to, so I listened to his “Live” recording.
Unfortunately there is no video of these routines, which sucks ‘cause a good portion of Brian’s humor his visual. But it’s still freaking hilarious. The “Stupid in School,” “Truck Drivers,” and “Crank Calls” routines are all fantastic, but they’re all good.
Holy Hell
2:41. The frisson. Jesus. This is really good.
No offence to Simon and Garfunkel, but I’ve liked every cover of this song that I’ve heard more than the original.
Gregorian
Ooh, I like it.
Nothing Else Matters is one of those songs that I absolutely love but also has some shit memories attached to it, since Rob introduced it to me and we all know what a disaster of a saga that whole “relationship” was.
So yeah.
IT’S FINALLY WARM SO I’M GETTIN’ MY BUTT OUTSIDE BEFORE WE PLUNGE INTO THE POLAR TEMPS AGAIN
WOOOOO!!
In other news: Andrew Bird came out with a new album and I can’t seem to get the song “Sisyphus” out of my head.
I came across Andrew Bird’s music thanks to an animated short I saw on YouTube quite some time ago about a mouse who lives with/keeps captive another mouse head. There was an Andrew Bird song playing in it, so I always think of that animation whenever I hear Andrew Bird.
Edit: FOUND IT:
Anosmia Awareness Day 2019
Hey nerds, it’s Anosmia Awareness Day, which means it’s time again for this fantastic vid:
I love how the comment section is full of anosmics. Music brings us together, yo.
Lirty Dies
So as you all know (if you read my blog and/or if you live in Calgary), this month has been hella cold. This means that I have been consistently wearing my on-ear headphones while walking to help keep my ears warm.*
And of course, if there are headphones, there is music. I like to put my entire music library on shuffle so that I can hear all sorts of types of music as I gun around on the trial.
My shuffle has been giving me a lot of Capitol Steps lately. If you don’t know who they are, they’re a political satire group that takes popular songs and re-writes the lyrics to be about something political/scandalous.
I found them through my dad; I think he knew one of the members and got some of their CDs from that person. We (my mom and dad and I) got to see them live in Spokane back when I was in high school, so that was awesome.
At the end of their shows, they have a guy perform a “Lirty Dies” routine, which is a bunch of spoonerisms focused on one or two major scandals from the year.
Anyway, I’ve gotten a few of these “Lirty Dies” come up on shuffle in the past few days, which reminded me of how funny they are.
Here are two of my favorites, “Falicornia” (from 2004) and “Gush and Bore” (from 2001).
Here’s a newer one, too!
This is a different guy than the guy who used to do them, but he’s still pretty good!
Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see them live (they usually perform in and around D.C., but they did come to Spokane at least once), go see them!
*It works, trust me
In This Blog: Claudia Complains About the Weather (Again)
I’m so sick of this freaking weather, yo.
Save for like three days, this whole month has been full of dangerously cold temps. Ambient temps in the negative teens (Fahrenheit), wind chills in the -20s or -30s (or even -40s). It’s gross, it hurts, and I’m so tired of feeling like I’m going to die of hypothermia on my walks. Where the shit is the “mild winter” we were supposed to get?
A -22 windchill seems to be my absolute lower limit, or at least the limit at which even my stubbornness won’t let me go below. I’m pretty sure I’ve had legit hypothermia on a decent number of my walks. Some of the signs of it include shivering, shallow breathing, clumsiness, confusion, and there have been a few points on my 15-mile walks (usually after I’ve been walking into the wind for five miles) where I really start to get into this hazy, confused mental state and start to lose a bit of coordination as I’m walking. There’s also been a few times where I go into the public bathrooms at mile 7 and have to shiver uncontrollably for about 15 minutes before I finally warm up enough to continue. Fun times!
Beats four hours on a treadmill, though.
HOLY BASS
Guys. Deadmau5’s “Let Go.”
This song (especially the first two minutes) is so good on these new Sennheisers. The chords, man, the chords. I get goosebumps.
Like…holy ballsacks, Batman.
So.
Good.
Woah
Guys, we were in the POSITIVE FAHRENHEITS today for like the first time in 20 years.*
It felt really good to be able to walk outside and not feel like I was going to die of hypothermia.
Seriously, I think this was the first actually enjoyable outside walk of this whole month. Does that mean spring is coming?!?!?!?!
(…please?)
*Mild exaggeration
LOL, SORRY, RUNNING
Yeah, I was right: now that the weather is (at least currently) not deadly within 10 minutes of exposure, I’ve abandoned the gym and am back outside.
Which means no more running for now.
I’d like to make running a more frequent thing, but I’m not sure that can happen this semester with how busy I am and how little time I have in the morning to get my 15 miles in before calculus. If I go to the gym, that means I have to spend time changing into and out of my gym clothes, which chews up a decent amount of minutes.
Maybe once spring gets here and I (maybe?) have some more free time.
Also, I know I’ve been complaining about the weather a lot, but I would honestly have Calgary’s absurd winter cold snaps than have the Koppen climate equivalent of “fuck you” that Vancouver has.
Deadly cold > rain. Any day.
*screeches in metric*
So y’all know I love the SI units, right? Hell, the “kilogram” tag on this blog is used frequently enough that it shows up in the “Tags” list on my front page.
Well, another closely-related thing I love are the SI prefixes. These are things like kilo or nano or yocto (which got its own blog a while back) that precede a unit and indicate either a multiple (like “kilo” suggests a thousand times something) or a fraction (like “milli” suggests a millionth of something) of the unit. Kilogram, nanosecond, millimeter, etc.
That kinda stuff.
Well, I guess four new prefixes have been proposed for the next levels of super big and super small: ronna and ronto for 1027 and 10-27 respectively, and quecca and quento for 1030 and 10-30, respectively. If they’re approved, they’re set to be officially put into place in 2022, making them the first prefixes approved since 1991.
And that is way too cool.
(I love the prefixes and I’m not sorry.)
Sound of Silence: Pentatonix Version
I like Disturbed’s cover a little bit more because I think they capture the mood of the song a bit better, but this is really good, too!
It’s sad that Avi is gone, but the new dude (Matt, far left) seems cool. I love the surprising bass he hits at 2:02. He didn’t sound like he’d have a bass range until he did that, nice.
Hey
Has anyone else’s February been absolute shit so far?
Or is that just me?
Just me?
Okay, cool.
Canadian Baseball League: Team Update
HI THERE
Still trying to think of names for my fake Canadian teams before the season starts. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
- Alberta: The Alberta Bulls
- Anchorage
- British Columbia
- Calgary: The Calgary Cowboys
- Edmonton: The Edmonton Oil Barons*
- London:
- Halifax: The Halifax Dreadhawks***
- Manitoba: The Manitoba Lakers (‘cause…there’s a lot of lakes in Manitoba?)
- Montreal
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Ottawa
- Prince Edward Island: The Prince Edward Islanders (I AM A GENIUS)
- Quebec
- Quebec City
- Regina: The Regina Giants (‘cause it sounds cool)
- Saint John
- Saskatchewan
- Saskatoon
- Thunder Bay: The Thunder Bay Lightning
- Toronto
- Vancouver:
- Victoria: The Victoria Royals
- Windsor:
- Winnipeg
- Yellowknife: The Yellowknife Blizzards
- Yukon: The Yukon Gold****
YES, a lot of them overlap with other sports. COWBOYS ARE NOT A UNIQUE GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURE TO DALLAS, OKAY?
*freaking ksdfjsjflsjfsjf the “Oil Barons” are name of a Junior Hockey Team from Fort McMurry. Gonna keep it anyway. And yes, I know, the Edmonton Oilers are a thing. Gonna keep it anyway. What the hell else is there unique about Edmonton, come on, give me a break.**
**Haha, I could call them “The Edmonton Mall Rats” instead, there ya go.
***Blame Picnicface. They’re Canadian, though, so it’s like a tribute.
****YES I KNOW THAT’S A POTATO I DON’T GIVE A STARCHY DAMN
‘Sall I got right now. Do you have any ideas/suggestions for the others?
Eigenblogger 