Published on Mar. 30, 2006
in General.
At school, I learned that it really is possible to call a pay phone.
A bunch of us were sitting in the hallway, when the pay phone suddenly started ringing. Intrigued, one person went to answer it. Ironically enough, it turned out to be a security guard phoning for a person who had lost their cell phone. Why this person had a pay phone’s number in her phone is beyond me.
Next, at dinner, I learned that my dad likes Madonna.
On his way home from work, he decided to tune into Z95.3FM for a change of pace. He heard a song that he liked, so he told me about it. He said that it was by a solo female singer and that it had the words “I don’t want to hear / I don’t want to know”. I knew it sounded very familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Justin was curious, so he Googled it. The result? It turned out to be Sorry, the latest Madonna single.
Published on Mar. 21, 2006
in Music.
A few weeks ago, I suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to spice up my life. I’m not sure what provoked this. Anyways, several hours and 329.7MB later, I had the entire Spice Girls discography on my PowerBook.
I had Stop stuck in my head throughout my Algorithm Analysis midterm today. That song is way too catchy, in all its pre-millennial pop glory. On the bus ride home, I was listening to it and subconsciously analyzing it in my head. I have discovered that it contains basso ostinato. I am a genius.
Published on Mar. 12, 2006
in General.
- Fail to write your lab section on your assignment. TAs don’t remember what lab section “Tuesday 8am-11am” refers to. It makes it just a little bit harder to enter in your grade and makes it just a little bit easier to deduct marks.
- Write really really small and messy, in hopes that the inability to read your writing will make your TA assume that your response is correct. This rarely works. He will get frustrated, not bother to read your answer and assume it is wrong. Typing your answers whenever possible is a good idea.
- Write your answers in non-sequential order. Don’t make me flip back and forth to find your answers scrawled on various sheets. It might not seem like a big deal, but when your marker is in the middle of a grueling five-hour marking session, the slightest annoyance could be problematic for your grade.
- Ramble on and on when you really don’t know how to answer the question at all. He’ll see right through it.
- Don’t actually answer the question at all and talk about something entirely different. Your TA has to follow the marking scheme. If it’s not in the marking scheme, you can’t get any marks for it.
But here’s how to make your TA really really happy.
- Coordinate with your fellow students to hand in your assignments sorted in alphabetical order by last name. You have no idea how happy this will make him.
Published on Mar. 2, 2006
in Music.
Yesterday, we did a fairly in-depth analysis of the chord progression and melodic composition of Arcade Fire’s Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) in my music theory class. It was weird because I’m positive that they weren’t thinking, “Why don’t we put a major-major seventh chord here built on D to interrupt the established diatonic collection?” or “Let’s make this melody structurally related to the last by inverting its intervallic composition!” when putting together the song.
It was doubly painful because the prof sings really off-key.
Wow, last night’s season premiere of The Amazing Race 9 was one of the best ever. Or maybe it was just okay, but in comparison to the lacklustre past three seasons, it was awesome.
For two hours, teams never got artificially bunched together because the building that has their next clue wasn’t open for another 10 hours. Their placing depended entirely on luck, skill and decision making, which is exactly what the race is supposed to be about. Throughout the show, teams fell behind and surged ahead, resulting in my least favourite team being eliminated from the race.
The premiere really proved that the producers don’t need to artificially add drama into the show, since the race inherently provides it through all the craziness of travelling to foreign countries, deciding between different tasks and putting your relationship through the stress of a 40-day competition.
So far, I really like Wanda and Desiree because they’re just really cute together. Also, David and Lori for pretty much the same reason, though their self-proclaimed nerdhood might get tiring soon. The competitors are fairly varied this season, which should make for interesting alliances and relationships between the teams.
