J-hizzle often posts about the deaths of celebrities, a habit I find somewhat unusual. But she seems to have missed the recent death of a great man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

Per wikipedia:

Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914 - September 12, 2009) was an American agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate, and has been called ( Read more... )

I've been reading some short stories by Truman Capote and, wow, the man had a simply wonderful sense of rhythm and aesthetics in prose. His sentences just seem to flow so perfectly. This, this is the model that wannabe writers should be striving for! Our current literary landscape would be a much richer if more writers had tried to emulate Capote ( Read more... )

Man, earlier today my sibs and I were chilling in the living room, reading for leisure. My brother was reading some George Eliot, my sister was reading some Gaston Leroux, and I was reading some Tolstoy. Man, we're such nerds. A Literature teacher's wet dream.

You know, I rarely talk about facebook here, but wow, the recent change they made has to be the stupidest design decision I've seen from them and perhaps any website. They removed the Recent Status Updates and Recently Updated Profiles parts of the Friends page! That was perhaps the part of facebook I used the most! Now it's absolutely atrocious. ( Read more... )

You know what I like? When you're reading a book, or watching a movie or tv show or whatever, and you actually have to stop to say to yourself "Man, whoever wrote this is a damn good writer!" But you know what I like even more? When you stop and say yourself, "Man, whoever wrote this is a damn good writer and must be a sort of kindred mind/spirit!"

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Man, when did Disney decide to stop making cartoons as genuinely awesome as these?


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Yesterday I turned in the final version of my dissertation, along with paperwork, to the Graduate School. I walked from Fitzpatrick, down God Quad, through the narrow path leading up to the Main Building. As I approached the building, I looked up at the Golden Dome, glowing bright in the spring sunshine. It got closer and closer with every step, ( Read more... )

Movies I've seen recently:

The Film is Not Yet Rated - What a disappointment! The subject matter is quite interesting to me, so I was looking forward to it, but rather than investigate fundamental social and financial issues at play here, this unbalanced, uninsightful documentary gets lost on irrelevant tangents and serves as a vehicle for smug ( Read more... )

Rock Band needs a higher difficulty setting than Expert on vocals.

Every now and then there's a little something that reminds me that English isn't my first language after all. Case in point: I don't get this whole "cents/sense" thing I've been hearing about all my life. I say them differently. One has a t, the other doesn't! Is the t in cents supposed to be completely silent, or is there an implied t-like sound ( Read more... )