February recap

A lot has been going on lately, and yet I haven't posted about ANY of it. The ironies of blogging - when you've actually got something to blog about, you have no time to tell people about it.

Let's see, where to begin....a few weekends ago was the visiting weekend for prospective grad students. Not much to say about that, except that free food and drink abounded, everyone in the department was on their best behavior (which is kind of funny to see), I hosted a student for the first time in my grad school career, and there were lots of nervous people walking around in suits for 2 days. Overall, it was fun but tiring. By the end, all the people you've met and spoken to kind of blur together. But I'd still rather be on this side of it than the other side.

At the end of that weekend was my first scans for my dissertation, a playoff victory for my IM basketball team, and the Shins concert (which I've already mentioned). The following weekend I went to visit my grandparents in Manhattan, Kansas (the Little Apple!), and my mom was there visiting too. It was the last time I'll see them in that house, since they're moving to a new place soon. So that was sad, but there are plenty of happy memories. Getting there, by the way, was pretty dicey at times. This was right in the middle of a nasty winter storm, and somewhere about halfway into my 6 hour drive conditions got pretty bad. I kept passing cars who had skidded out and visibility got really poor. Luckily, I made it just fine. On the way back to St. Louis 2 days later, you wouldn't believe the number of cars I passed that had just been abandoned by the side of the road. I'm trying to imagine the mindset of some of these people who just leave their cars on the highway - "Aww, screw it...I'm walking!"

Shortly after that, my IM basketball team got thrashed in the semi-finals. The game featured, for the first time I've ever seen one in an IM game, a dunk. You don't really know how demoralizing it is to be dunked on until it happens to you. In the NBA, sure, it's no big deal. Guys do it all the time. I don't think Shaq even needs to jump. But to have it happen amongst guys whom you assume are roughly as athletic as you is a big kick in the pants. And that was the problem - these guys were quite a bit more athletic than us. Thus, our Cinderella run came to a screetching halt.

Somewhere in all this, karaoke had been floundering. For various reasons, it hadn't been able to happen for a few weeks and something had to be done. So armed with karaoke listings from the RFT, we set out to find a new place to make our American Idol dreams come true. The first place was a dud - or so I heard. I didn't actually go in. Kia and Tal went in and came back quickly. They described a pretty large place with a stage but only two people there. And one of them was on stage. We left. The second place on our list had the same address as the first, with a slightly different name. So we're 0-2 at this point.

Next, we mosey down the street to a promising place that has actually hosted karaoke before. No dice. It's getting desperate. We decide to give it one more try before acknowledging defeat. So off we go, one more shot. The place looks good from the outside. In fact, it's got a big sign on the side claiming karaoke until 3am. I had no idea. If you think you sound good at 11, imagine how great you think you'll sound at 2:30am! So clearly we had hit the jackpot.

Until we actually stepped inside. I'm not sure really how to describe the place. This is a situation in which pictures would be much better than words, and video better than pictures. Let's just say that it was thematically jumbled. Pictures of nostalgia-inducing figures (Frank Sinatra and Elvis come to mind) were under the glass on the bar. Irridescent angels were in nooks and crannies on the wall. Bright green and red neon lights zigzagged all around. The clientele was a whole different story. Notable characters included the guy who sat at the end of the bar, nursing his drink and smoking, getting up only to go sing a sad country song, and then retreating to the bar. There was also the annoyingly flirty woman (girl?) who seemed to be real close with a few of the guys there and knew she was the center of their attention and loved it. Overall, though, the place seemed kind of deserted. None of us could quite get up the nerve to go sing, so we sat at a table in the corner and watched. I think the owner could tell we weren't regulars and came to tell us to let him know if there was anything we needed. What we needed most was to get out of there, and we shortly did. So it was a failed (if entertaining) karaoke pilgrimmage that night.

In other news, Kia got me Madden '07 for Valentine's Day. It's a great game, but one of those sports games that has almost too many options. It's not just run and pass. You've got pump fake, juke to the right or left, spike the ball to stop the clock. Your linebackers can pump up the crowd to make them louder, and your QB can quiet the crowd if you're at home. If you really want to get serious, I think there are options to monitor college players and draft them for your team. It's crazy how much time you can spend on this thing.

Oh, and we had a tornado warning this morning. It's March 1st. Something is pretty wrong with that. Ah well, business as usual in "The Big Muggy" of St. Louis.

And finally, over on Leavy's blog (oberlin.blogspot.com), he's challenging his readers to name as many bands with living (non-human) things in their names as they can in 5 minutes. I got 15 the first time around, but sitting in class I came up with another whole 15. That blows my mind. Without geeking out too much, that's what makes memory so fascinating. What made me think of those 15 first? Clearly the second set of 15 were in the already, but they just weren't accessible at the time. And even though I was in class, my brain kept working on the "problem" at hand, and was moderately successful at it. It's like being slightly distracted was actually helpful in retrieving more information. It's sort of like how certain stars in the sky are only visible if you're not looking directly at them. Anyway, a little fun memory test if you want to try it.