Dear internet: headphones. Keeping in mind I am 1.) 1/3 of the way to my 2008 savings goal, 2.) working in a lab with approximately 7 fridges, one robot, three DNA extraction machines, a tabletop centrifuge and umpteen biddy - plus the thermocycler fans! - and rec accordingly.

Before tossing that favorite inexpensive and kind of scruffy purse into the laundry, it might be worth your time to ask, "hey, I wonder if this is so cheap there's cardboard in here?" This message brought to you by someone a little older and wiser, who spent time picking wet cardboard out of the laundry machine last night.

Last week I completely lost my head and bought four classical CDs. Hey, they were used! And if you'd heard the end of Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony on the radio - it's big. It's huge. It's amazing and splendid and the sort of thing that has to be played at volumes in excess of urban noise ordinances. So I had to run out and find it. I already had a copy, but didn't find it until later, which is an argument for turning my external hard drive into a wiki or something. But this other recording! This wonderful second example of awesome music! Boston Symphony Orchestra 1959 recording; Charles Munch conducting and Berk Zamkochian on organ. And I incidentally picked up a few more CDs, in that way you do. A Baltimore Symphony Orchestra recording of Copland's Rodeo and "Billy the Kid" made in '93; a cello concerto set of Dvorak and Saint-Saens recorded by the London Philharmonic with Mstislav Rostopovich in '77; and glory of glories, a two-disc recording of Rachmaninoff's four piano concertos and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Rachmaninoff playing the piano. I am super, super excited about this: my favorite Rachmaninoff played by the Man! The forecast is calling for lousy humidity all week; I think I will spend it lying on the floor wringing sweat out of everything I own maximum fidelity out of my lame sound setup. Especially for the 1929 Rhapsody recording, which - mmm, tinny much? Oh who cares, I think I'm going to start crying. This is awesome.

I also found the Beethoven I'd put "somewhere safe" in June. Speaking of the Man. You know how a lot of contemporary bands have their one fast song, one slow song, and then the other 11 tracks on the album? (Coldplay, I am totally looking at you.) Beethoven has more than two songs! Okay, he also has a bigger instrument section, but the point is - many songs! Classical's dynamic range is defeated on my work headphones - okay, the fans from the fridges, freezers, thermocyclers, and let us not forget the occasional mostly balanced quick-spin microcentrigue(s) don't help - but that just gives me something to look forward to after a day of mezzoforte rock and pop.

Victory! The last pieces of my book case finally resurfaced in my over-the-shoulder bag. I'm down to two boxes (and kitchen stuff) I actually plan to unpack, and four (or five) of old class notes that are make dandy furniture.

Every time I put together weather forecasts (awful), sunrise data (too early), and household schedules (head-on shower/shave/toothbrushing collisions, every morning), I start seriously thinking that getting up at 5:30 might not be an intrinsic affront against my fundamental nature. This is what happens when I don't have a two hour (one way) commute: I think getting up earlier is a good idea. I very much doubt this idea will survive the daylight to standard time conversion.

Today's early wakeup was muffed by last night's adventures in music mix construction. (You thought I was going to say "music mix making". Ha ha.) After much consideration, I am absolutely convinced that Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" ("just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don't mind it") needs to be stuck in a mix with Fall Out Boy's "Thnks Fr th Mmrs" ("he tastes like you but sweeter"). Possibly in the same mix as "Gotta Get Over Greta" and "I Spent My Last $10.00 (On Birth Control and Beer)" just to make a point. It turns out that exhibitionary lesbianism annoys me about as much as any other blatant appeal to the male 15 to 45 demographic. Also in the mix: the Killers' "Somebody Told Me" (more exhibitionism); Blur, "Girls & Boys" (exhibitionism '90s grunge rock style).

I have music spread over three hard drives, and two of these are supposed to be mirror copies. Is there an easy synch/backup program that can handle cross-talk among a 60, 80, and 320 gig hard drives? Oh, the largest is an external, and the medium has been partitioned for an XP/linux dual-boot with minimal NTFS space and no FAT32.

Tonight I had S. from college over for dinner. "It's too hot to cook," I said, "so let's just plan to get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store." When we got to my place, chicken in hand, a classic summer cloudburst had popped the temperature bubble. The irony was a pleasant flavor with the couscous (just add carmelized onions, basil and lemon), chicken and corn on the cob. Dessert was Hagen-Dazs mango sorbet, which is essentially frozen syrup. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of choice, but I thought it was too sweet.

And oh, here comes the sugar crash. Good night, all, and to all a good night.

Gigantic preventative maintenance shenanigans; have boiled three pots of water without actually getting my iced tea. Also, found out what it takes to bring on the long-waited moving freakout: the library. Now I want to crawl back into my college digs and never leave. Am self-medicating with phone calls and chocolate. I would throw a fit, call in sick tomorrow, etc, but it doesn't actually solve the fundamental freakout at being a responsible adult. What I really need to do is health care and finances, yay. After that I can see what my sick/vacation leave time looks like and burn some reckless hours (or a day for appointments, whatever).

Have a music mix while my sugar crash and I drop off for the night.

DRIVING MIX V0.90 (06 June, 2008)
1.) Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz
2.) Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
3.) Cobra Starship - Snakes on a Plane
4.) Usher - Yeah
5.) Flo-Rida - Low
6.) Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine
7.) Beastie Boys - Intergalactic
8.) Arcade Fire - Keep the Car Running
9.) Bond - Kashmir
10.) Moxy Fruvous - Laika
11.) Boondock Saints - Blood of the CuChlain

This is why I have to go to work tomorrow. It's absolutely essential that someday, somewhere, I get to drive a V6 engine on green-fringed suburban streets while singing ridiculous songs at the tippy-top of my lungs.

Yesterday afternoon I looked at an apartment. I called after work to seize the lease, and it was already gone to someone who'd called Sunday night. This will teach me to try to talk to the roommates before telling the landlord I want the place!

Today's coping mechanisms are all about looking for the bright side. Maybe something better will turn up. I mean, I forgot my lunch, and work had pizza today. There's a lesson there. Oh! Speaking of joy: I have a car for the next 2 1/2 weeks. And 105.9 has switched from "smooth jazz" (elevator music) to classic rock. So instead of Kenny G, I get the Beach Boys. There's a lost piece of my childhood that makes me smile every time I remember it's gone forever.

This week I'm working on musical mix-and-match. Clocks and Laika are keepers. Janis Joplin will also be making an appearance singing a song of great social and political import. Muse goes in a different mix, except maybe for Starlight.

More room-hunting: can I deal with an hour-long commute? (Not again.) Am I "420-friendly"? (Oh heck no! Not near my clean work clothes!) Do I want the third room in a bachelor pad? (Only if I get my own bathroom.) Craigslist has more than 500 ads for the greater DC metro area just for Monday, plus the Post ads; someone's got to have something for me.

Because I have no shame, my favorite playlist this week:

01. Mary Chapin Carpenter - Passionate Kisses (3:23)
02. Wilson Phillips - Hold On (4:27)
03. Jennifer Saunders - Holding Out for A Hero (3:56)
04. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart (5:28)
05. Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On (4:41)
06. Pat Benatar - We Belong (3:42)
07. Cher - (This Is A) Song For The Lonely (4:01)
08. Melissa Etheridge - Come To My Window (3:36)
09. Berlin - Take My Breath Away (4:12)
10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon OST - A Love Before Time (English) (3:45)
11. Mask of Zorro OST - I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You (4:43)
12. Bonnie Tyler - Holding Out For A Hero (5:50)
13. Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You (4:33)
14. Vanessa Williams - Save the Best for Last (3:39)

So I hate romance novels but have a thing for power ballads.
There you are, girl genes! If Bonnie Tyler made it twice,
Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" should be on there too.
Leona Lewis singing "Bleeding Love" should be on there as well, but
the radio's giving it plenty of play already.
--

Last night I gave myself a treat: lost night in DC! I decided that I needed food and art, so I took the metro to Dupont, got turned around and found the Dupont Second Story Books, then walked the opposite way on P Street and had dinner at Bua Thai. Then I took the metro to the New York Ave station and hit Artomatic. Metro; it does a body good. I like Artomatic because it's very... what's the appropriate Latin for "money"-cratic? If you pay the entrance fee and volunteer time, you get to show your art. (The occasionally-radical feminist in my soul compels me to rant about leisure time and privilege, but she went down for a Saturday afternoon nap and never made it back to consciousness.) Sculpture, bondage photographs, traditional 2D oils, less racy photography, fire dancing, it's all there. I'd planned to start at the top and do a quick pass through to get my bearings, and instead spent hours on the 12th floor. High office buildings with art where cubicles will be in a few months are a great venue for watching a cold front rip apart rain clouds as DC rolls away from the sun. Between perusing exhibits, I spent time people-watching photographers who had brought cameras and were in the process of making new art from the people looking at the installed art, and chatted up artists.

I have no camera, and I really miss it, even if my Kodak c875 had several flaws (no optical viewfinder; just small enough to make pocket-carrying seem possible, but it didn't really work; ate high-energy AA's like there was no tomorrow. And then there was the camera door that cracked, and had to be held shut with masking tape). My paycheck is burning and writhing in my pocket, a live coal, a hot potato, a glass of halcyon water in a noisy desert, but I will not be reckless. Much. (Hi, Jason Mraz! At $13 for the pair, I can totally buy both of your CDs. And hi, amazon mp3 downloads. Amazing how fast n*$0.99 = real money.) So if anyone hears about a (digital) camera sale, let me know; if you've got a camera you're trying to get rid of, likewise. Caveat: I'm not messing with film unless you're dumping an SLR - because I'll be able to afford a digital SLR about when the sun swells up, scorches the Earth, and dies - but for a stopgap camera, I'll start at "yes, please" and negotiate from there.

I have nothing nice to say about broken thermocyclers. I have many nice things to say about Crowded House. And in retrospect, I've been ridiculously hungry this week because I learned the hard way I really don't like corned beef on rye.

Now off to bed, before I fall asleep on the keyboard.

Leaves, flowers, rock music, fire. I'm experimenting with thumbnails, Scrapbook this week and not cutting; shout if any of these choices or the formatting makes you cry. (I know it looks really ugly to me. Watch this space for future tables.)


In the gardens at the National Arboretum. Resizing, gradient map (black-and-white, normal mode).


Bonsai'd azalea at the National Arboretum. Good timing on that trip. Auto color, resizing.


Gin Blossoms at Artomatic. Resizing.


Firedancing by Flights of Fire at Artomatic. Resizing. If you google "flights of fire" dc you can pull up a flickr account with someone else's much cooler pictures from the same evening.

To knock points off for excessively long answers or not to knock off points, that's the question. Answer: no, unless you include factually wrong information in the extra verbage.

Project Instant Music Gratification has put a full 21 gigs of music on my hard drive. I am going to finish grading these papers, and then get myself over to newegg.com for a new external. Then I get to spend the shipping time thinking of names. (Flash drives are bird species, in honor of the Albatross. I want a different tradition for big externals.) For reasons that really don't need exploring at this juncture, everything I've thought up so far has made me cackle.

Speaking of music, look at these:

1.) Black Eyed Peas, "My Humps". This is the sort of thing used to discuss objectification of women and racial stereotypes in rap/hip-hop. (Warning: offended sensibilities. If you really want to really upset yourself, look up the notorious Snoop Dogg "Doggystyle" album cover.)
2.) Alanis Morrissette, "My Humps." The woman who tried to bring you irony now brings you parody; or, Alanis does Strange Little Girls.

Knock yourselves out.

norabombay has done a 13 song rap/hip-hop primer. I think this is awesome, since I have the sketchiest understanding of the genre, and as a member of the post-MTV generation, I really should be able to put names to Top 40 songs.

Found on YouTube: Kanye West's Katrina outburst, which amuses me way, way too much. YouTube is going to be my new evening timesink. Watch this space for wacky music videos.

Found elsewhere: Martian groundwater; praise is problematic, which will have every single person of my generation nodding along, because it's true, you only see criticism of the stuff worth trying to improve; a spellcheck poem (because affect is not effect, likewise GTP and GFP - take a close look at the most awesome plate ever); the Open WetWare wiki, which may become my new best friend.

Snow: stuck to grass, but not on the roads. I spent the day wavering between enjoying the spectacle and mild irritation at what it does to the spectacles perched on my nose. Today's snow also revealed my secret superpower: I called the college's early closing, to the hour, on request. Psychic powers? Intuitive understanding of how the school does business after four and a half years of experience? I need to get out of Dodge like now.

And now I am going to bed, because it's nearly midnight and I have to be up early tomorrow. Watch this space for "instant human: add caffeine" moments.

List of things I do not understand:

1.) Alignment software
2.) Phylogenetics software
3.) State songs

Virginia's "emeritus state song" is "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" (sometimes spelled "Virginny") which completely fails any PC tests. The move to replace the state song has been on since 1999; the interim state song is "Shenandoah".

"Maryland, My Maryland". You have to wonder about any song that proclaims "Avenge the patriotic gore/That flecked the streets of Baltimore" in the first stanza; it took even Francis Scott Key a little longer than that to fall from metaphor to invoking actual blood.

The District of Columbia doesn't seem to have any sort of official song. Too bad; it might be as charming as the DC license plate.

Chiming in on local gossip: got damp biking to work last Thursday, and got a more thorough soaking today. I cannot predict cloudbursts to save my life - or at least my jeans. I'm watching the weather with a mix of childish glee and horror. On the one hand, water! Lots of water! Flooding the metro, when was the last time that happened? And ohhh, lightning. On the other hand, chaos, turmoil, and property damage are not cool. At least no one's died yet, though that could change; predictions seem to call for even more rain tonight.

Judging by the deafening number of comments I've gotten lately, I'm apparently even less amusing than usual, so let's make this an interactive post. Reply to this with a topic you'd like me to pontificate on. I'll give you a paragraph, unless it warrants a post.

Is it legitimate to go back and tag old entries without correcting errors?

I say yes. It takes too long to clean up after the spellchecker.

Tangentially, I realized recently that I never really explained my friending policy. It wavers between arbitrary and highly subjective based on five criteria:

1.) Do you write interesting or amusing posts?

2.) Is there a disproportionate quantity of drama associated with your journal?

3.) Do I know you in real life?

4.) Who is this person who has friended me, but never commented on a post or otherwise introduced themselves?

5.) Do I have time to extend my flist reading list?

If my answers are yes, no, yes, "oh, that's ____", and, "no, but I want to know what they're up to!" you're on my reading list. These days, 5.) is the strongest criteria.

And then there's the amorphous list of people I read when I have time (in other words, when I am procrastinating madly). Most of whom are very interesting and erudite, but slightly out of my usual focus. I wish I had time to read more of you.

In unrelated news, I started at the Most Temporary Job Ever today. They want be back three more times over the next three weeks for an estimated nine hours each day (plus commute!), but it's actually in my field, so I'm in love.

In other news, I do not like the Ataris. They keep covering songs better left in their original glory.