P.S.A.

Click pic to embiggen. Stay healthy! And if you're sick, stay the h3ll away from me; I have neither health insurance nor paid sick leave. TYVM.

Yep, that about says it all. :)

Still working on the computer issue, or rather the lack thereof. Back soon, I hope!

Blogging Light Continues

This has been the week for stuff going wrong: I've had a three-day sinus headache that won't quit no matter how many decongestants I take; the car's starter is acting up again (that's what you get when you can only afford to buy used parts) so I once again have to carry a small hammer and a bypass switch; and yesterday, almost in time for Halloween, my laptop decided to give up the ghost (get it: ghost - Halloween - mwahahahaha). Employing all my amateur computer geekyness, I ran a diagnostic on the laptop's hard drive once I was able to get to the necessary menu -- you just have to be fiendishly fast at startup and hit F12 right during the split second it barely appears on the screen before the system freezes up again... The system passed the "express test" but that seemed fishy to me, so I ran a few more tests specific to the symptoms my computer was exhibiting.

Unfortunately, the results confirmed what I had feared: the hard drive is a gone-gone-goner. Fortunately, just before the crash I had been able to finish my online class midterm, and I had backed up my interminable term paper (all nearly 4000 words of it) as well as most data files and photos. Yay me. But still, this sucks just a bit. (My ten-year-old dinosaur PC is on its last legs too, it won't even run the internet software. I can still use it for typing letters, though, ha!) I don't have much time to go the library to use the computers there, so I won't be back online for a while. Therefore, no blogging, Facebook, or e-mail until further notice, i.e., computer acquisition. Hope you'll stay tuned -- I will be back! :)

Halloween Pipes

I don't celebrate Halloween, but I'll take any excuse to listen to my favorite piece of classical music that has become associated with the "spooky" holiday: Johann Sebastian Bach's brilliant Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which I prefer played on pipe organ. However, I found this 1996 interpretation by Vanessa-Mae interesting. A good tune is a good tune.



And now for something completely different: the same piece on accordion. Heh heh heh. Not bad, actually: somewhat reminiscent of a pipe organ since it also involves air pressure in the production of the sound. The "finger work" is pretty amazing too.



My favorite YouTube rendition, on pipe organ, can be found here.

More College Illiteracy

From my online political science class. 'Scuse me while I go bang my head against the desk some more. <*BANG*>

"A long time ago I thought that the president was the most powerful person the word but now I know that he ort she is not the most powerful person on the world. I use to think that they created the laws and pass the ones that they wanted without having to be approving by the congress but to my special that is not the way that things work. He or she just has the right to vote like everyone else. What I didn’t know was that the president has control of the arm. No I have no subjection but that they should do what they say that they are going to do before they are president."

Do the parents know they might be wasting their money?

R.I.P.

Martha
1955 - 2009

College Illiteracy

This was someone's submission for an extra credit assignment in one of my online classes. This could have qualified for a Friday Frolic if it wasn't so pathetic.

I have saw a few good presidents in my life and they are Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Each one of these men did some must for the Domocraics. The one I will talk about is Barack Obama. He has done alot for those who doesn't have insurance to make the health care to where people can afford. So many people cant afford insurance through there jobs because it is so expansive but he step end to help those that are in need. The other think he has done is make the green collared jobs so that people want be unemployed. These will help are econmy, get out of the recession that we are in. I think that the green collar jobs it the best decesion ever. I also like the program that he has for the mother to go back to school and get their degrees. When he took the oath to do what is right by our country, I love it because so far I see he has keep his word more then some of the other presidents did.

[*head to desk*] This country is doomed.

Symphony of Science

There is much to be learned, indeed.