2009: A great year

Forget the economy. 2009 served as proof that a recording artist can stay active well beyond anyone's expectations, and even past the point where anyone cares. As proof, I give you the following list of studio (yes, studio) albums that were released this past year.

I feel obligated to post something on Christmas

I'm really surprised today's woot shirt hasn't sold out.

Gursh durnit

I understand the sentiment, but I don't see how they could possibly stuff a "12" into the logo.

Lyricism

Sometimes, I find it frustrating when I'm searching for something about a mostly-instrumental song and the results include song lyrics sites. Other times, it makes me happy.

Trucking along

I'm getting close to done with my work for the semester. The long-dreaded formal methods project is essentially complete, with my paper having been submitted Tuesday night and my presentation for this Monday already 85-90% complete. The project for my graphics class is an almost guaranteed disaster at this point, but it's so far gone that I've given up on worrying about getting it to work and am instead trying to just make it presentable, which actually seems like it won't be that hard. In my networks class, the paper is being handled by the entire group, and I managed to heroically cough up four and a half pages of draft today, very nearly completing the sections that I said I would write.

The problem is that I have about a paragraph and a half left to go, I'm tired, and either my upstairs neighbors or the people living next to them have decided to throw a Loud Student Party. I don't think I've encountered any of these in my time living in Spartan Village. I am very grateful for that fact, and I am saddened that I am now being reminded of why I dislike Loud Student Parties so intensely. There is a constant stream of bass noises coming through the ceiling. There are people half-yelling things indistinctly. And, most irritatingly of all, there are periodic shoutings of, "Woo."

They aren't Ric Flair. They don't have the right to say that. And they certainly don't have the right to interfere with the overtaking of one of the many obstacles between me and my degree.

I hate people when they're not polite...

Exceeding expectations

About a week and a half ago, I decided it was time to really buckle down on school. Since I'm posting here, I obviously haven't done a great job of that, but one thing that stuck is that I haven't cooked anything in a while. Preparing edible food and cleaning up afterward requires at least an hour and a half, and once I start cooking something, I have no choice but to finish. If I get fast food or unfreeze something, I can eat and be done with it.

The problem with this has been that there aren't many convenient fast food places between my apartment and the Engineering Building. The best two are Subway and Woody's Oasis (a Lansing-area Mediterranean chain), and I've eaten enough of them to largely exhaust my taste. Yesterday night, after working on something at the EB until about 6:30 or so, I realized that I would need to grab something from the food court across the street. My options were Subway (overdone), Woody's (overdone), Villa Pizza (consistently awful), and Panda Express.

I hadn't eaten at Panda Express in a while. When I first started going to Michigan State, I didn't have much of a reference point on Chinese food. My parents usually ordered from one place that I never particularly liked, so during my first few years, Panda Express seemed like a convenient and acceptable option. After moving off-campus, though, I started going to better places that were outside walking distance (mostly Golden Wok). Lately, most of the Chinese food that I've have had has been stuff that I've attempted to cook at home. I don't think it's ever turned out particularly well, but it's been palatable at least, and it has the advantage of being cheap to make in quantities that would give me leftovers.

So, yesterday night, as I leaving the Engineering Building, I said to myself, "I'll have Panda Express. It can't be that bad."

Oh, yes, it can.

Allow me to clear this up for you

It's never lupus.

Unabcseptable

I am aware that the primary criterion for bowl selections is how much money the teams will bring in. Therefore, I suppose should have expected the Orange Bowl to snap up Iowa, a school that gets solid fan support in road games. I am a little surprised that the Fiesta Bowl took both TCU and Boise State, however, because they get to pick before the Sugar Bowl and I would expect Cincy to be able to move fans better than either of those schools.

Mostly, though, I'm sad that for a while, it looked like we might get not one, but two chances to see a weak-conference powerhouse go up against a high-end team from the Big Six. Instead, we're going to learn nothing. Maybe someone decided that they didn't want a repeat of last year's Utah-Alabama game. I hate it when my inner cynic's predictions come true.

Also, my blarg now has a description. A few people will know why it's there, and I don't think I mind if everyone else has to guess.

Look! I can be a bowl committee, too!

I don't think I've posted any infuriatingly bad jokes here yet

Sorry, I'm away
From my phone
Guess you'll have to wait
'Til I get home
Please leave a message on the line
And I'll get back to you sometime

First snow

Hi, me.

If you ever find yourself wondering, "When in 2009 did I first wake up in the morning and find snow on the ground?" it was today. Whatever day it is. I think Blogger will automatically tell me that if I click "Publish Post."

The UNC thing

Disclaimer: it's very late, and I've spent most of today and part of tomorrow working on a paper, so this post may not make sense in places.

I'm writing this post because it's clear that MSU's basketball team can't beat UNC. I don't mean "can't" in the theoretical sense here — of course the team could theoretically pull out a win — but MSU just doesn't seem able to get the job done. I think we've lost the last six meetings, if not more. It isn't a case of a simple talent differential: we were supposed to be hopelessly outclassed against Pitt and Louisville in last year's tournament, but we managed to find a way to beat them. We then followed that by getting completely routed in the title game, as I watched the game at a movie theater in west Lansing and ate popcorn despondently. There's something about UNC that always seems to do us in.

After seeing yet another loss unfold tonight, I tried to think of possible reasons why this phenomenon continues to occur. This was what I came up with: