friday shuffle

haven't done this in a while...

Reel Big Fish - Boss DJ - Live
Dexter Freebish - Spotlight - A Life of Saturdays
Relient K - Softer to Me
The Decemberists - California One Youth and Beauty Brigade - Castaways and Cut-Outs
Death Cab for Cutie - Information Travels Faster - The Photo Album
Lost Prophets - Burn Burn - Start Something
Dance Hall Crashers - Elvis & Me - Honey I'm Homely!
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Summertime - Are a Drag
Nobuo Uematsu - Forever Rachel - Final Fantasy VI OSV
Dispatch - Passerby - Who Are We Living For

since I'm in the process of upgrading my desktop (I have computer parts and their boxes, manuals, and cables strewn across the floor, somewhat to the chagrin of my girlfriend), I did this one on my iPod (shuffle: songs; music -> artists -> hit play). not sure if it's a different random number generator, but it does seem to be a somewhat different cross-section than usual.

google ad nonsense

I love the targeted ads with Google's Adsense. I write an email to my girlfriend about squashing a spider in our apartment, and she sees ads for exterminators. OK, that makes sense. usually, I just ignore these, but recently there have been a few that caught my eye. today, I was reading a page about how to install Mac OS on non-Mac hardware (e.g., anything x86), and here's this ad in the side bar.

Toilet Partition Hardware
Jacknob® - Over 2,400 Items for Toilet Partitions

huh? I somehow doubt this is a subtle implication about Mac OS being a "crappy" platform but rather the use of the keyword "partition," which here is referring to partitioning a hard drive, not a toilet (I'm not even sure what the latter means).

here's an even better one. a couple days ago, my girlfriend was checking her gmail when she noticed an ad on the side that says something to the effect of "Searching for a threesome." yes, it was an add so that you and your partner could find a third. what was the email she was reading about? it was about coaching the women's ultimate frisbee team. I'm thinking that some key words and phrases like "recruiting more women" or "hardcore practices" or "groups of girls" may have tipped it off, but I feel like ad sense should be somewhat more sensible than that. or maybe not, who knows.

anybody else have google ad nonsense stories to share?

scdc

as I biked to the building where my lab is this morning, I noticed many a sign for an on campus event. apparently, we're currently hosting the SoCal Drosophila Conference in the atrium and main auditorium of our building. I realize this is rather petty and silly, but I amused as I thought to myself, "my word, our building is being swarmed by fruit fly people!"

ok, back to revising the paper(s).