Eff you. Eff you. You're cool, and eff you. I'm out! (aka I've moved!)

Yes, the classic "I've moved!" post. Blogger has been bothering me with its frequently buggy hyperlinking and I've been wanting more versatility. I will miss the old orange on white, so cartoon Alex and the Stratus on Congress Ave may come along eventually.

If you come to this blog as nufah.com then... you probably aren't reading this right now. If you roll old school with thebea.blogspot.com then just hop on over to http://www.nufah.com (yep, I gots me a tri-dub).

There's a little more info on my latest post there, but suffice to say that I came across a deal at the last minute on DreamHost that I couldn't pass up, for both Student Bloggers and this little beauty. The new site is a little rugged now, but as long as research continues to be less interesting than the interwebs I will be working on it.

Obligitory end of year list... kind of

We're about 48 hours away from the end of 2008 and I have yet to list my favorites of anything. I'm pretty sure that it's blogger law that we Internet cowboys* share our simplified, organized opinions with the 'nets at the end of each year. Because this would take a good amount of time and inevitably result in a list that A) I would disagree with in a week, or B) be filled with BS answers designed to make me look super-cool and indie/nerdsome, I turned to my girlfriend, data.

At the risk of using a word that is fairly meaningless at this point, I am pretty obsessed with my stats on iTunes. I've spent hours rating songs, listening to songs purely so they will have at least one play count, and I prayed a silent prayer to the open-source gods when I found Moody. Naturally, I was pretty excited when Lifehacker.com told me how to create a Best of 200_ smart playlist. Basically it shows the songs that were added during a given calendar year, rated higher than 3 out of 5, and played the most. Pretty simple and fairly objective.

The problem with this is three-fold. First, it may not accurately portray your favorite songs of the year. An okay song in a great album might get lots of play just because it is with great songs. It also often results in just a few artists being included for people like me, who tend to listen to albums rather than playlists or individual songs.

The second problem is simple, though it best shows how lame I am. Songs added at the end of the year will naturally be played fewer times that year than ones added in January. I actually thought about waiting until January to add some nerdcore I recently downloaded so that the data would reflect how much I liked it (thus the lameness).

The final problem is that... it pretty accurately portrays your favorite songs of the year. For example, do I want to admit that Katy Perry and Paramore are among the top 30 songs by play count? No, but that's what iTunes tells me. Fortunately I'm happy with the rest. So, without naming all the songs, the top artists of the year** (in order of their most played song) are:

1. Zach Lost (best lyricist I've heard in a long time)
   
2. Grace Potter & The Nocturnals (mind melting voice on Grace Potter)
   
3. GLaDOS & Jonathan Coulton (Still Alive from the video game Portal - best song sung by a robot about cake this year. I said it.)
4. Miranda Lambert (best country singer out there right now and one of the few I still listen to)
   
5. Paramore (there's something about that artificially bright red hair)
   
6. Danielle Ate the Sandwich (really rad singer-songwriter out of Ft. Collins who I found on YouTube)
   
7. Erin Ivey (amazing urban folk artist out of Austin)
   
8. Daniella Cotton (hard rocking lady I first heard at the Allgood Music Festival)
   
9. Katy Perry (one song. shut it.)
   
10. Ben Folds (this dude rocks. nothing else to say.)
    
11. Duffy (equally mind-melting as Potter, but on the mellow end of the spectrum)

Some I would really include, but that were added late in the game include MC Chris, Q-Tip, and Vampire Weekend. MC Chris is the most entertaining nerdcore artist I've heard yet. ytcracker may be the "reigning king of nerdcore," but Chris is more fun to listen to any day of the week.

Lessons from this list? Well I clearly liked listening to women sing more than men. I'll bring that up with Freud later. Vampire Weekend, Fort Minor, and various male bands from the Rock Band 2 soundtrack were high on the list, but not enough to make the top 30 songs. My musical ego would also like to add that this list is fairly eclectic, with hip-hop, urban folk, soul, country, rock, robot, and pure ear candy all represented (among others).

So that's it. My objectively chosen top artists of 2008. If you're really interested in specific songs or albums just ask in the comments. I've been buying a lot of music in the last month, and since I will (hopefully) be employed in a fo'-real job after graduation there will probably be more contenders for next year. I might include those from December of this year since I bought several good albums in the last few weeks and grad school has made me a little crazy over externally valid data. But that's a question for 2009. Until then check out S. Vincent's top albums of the year and make your own smart playlist*** to share with the old El Beamo.


*Yeah, that sounded like a bit much to me too.
** Actually the second half of 2008. Technical difficulties led me to reload much of my music on June 6th.
*** My criteria: Added in 2008 (or since June 7), over 3 stars, not a video, and limited to 30 by most played. Of course you can tweak this for your list.

Love it.

20sb December blog carnival

As I mentioned a few posts back I have wanted to get a little more involved in the bare bones social network Twenty-Something Bloggers. It's really a forum as much as a social network, but it's been fun meeting bloggers on there and making my RSS reader less work and more personal. 20sb is having a December blog carnival asking for wishlists and since I love making lists here's mine:

Wishlist of things I want that are free:

1. A high-five from my niece
2. A finished move of NUFAH to Wordpress
3. Coffee shop conversations with friends back home (the conversation is free)
4. The high school rowers I used to coach not saying anything obscene as soon as I see them (little savages)
5. Productivity from myself
   
6. To be actually removed from the email/catalog lists that I've requested it from
   
7. A movie night with friends
8. A movie night with family
9. An organized computer cleaned of all useless files
10. A recommendation of one album/song from everyone who reads this (reader participation FTW!)

What your TA is actually thinking about during exams

I'm a fairly young guy. A young man, if you will. That said, I am occasionally reminded that here, on a college campus, I am old. I am one of those old, boring grad students who often does work on weekend nights, wears sweater vests (don't be jealous), and gets as much excitement from finding a great journal article as I used to get from getting to the cafeteria before all the Frosted Flakes were gone.

One of the students in the class I am TAing reminded me of this when I told him about the last paper I had for the semester. On finding out that it was to be 25 pages, his response was, "Good luck!" in the kind of "you're about to go into a battle against a mountain lion with nothing but a toothbrush, but I guess it's your funeral" kind of tone. I used to do that. Now? 25 pages is... just 25 pages. After handing in a thesis proposal 71 pages long, 25 pages just isn't that scary anymore.

Which brings me to this morning. As I stood there in front of 350 or so undergrads, mostly sophomores and juniors, I thought, "Could I kick it with these youngsters?"* I had received a few Facebook requests after my (epic) review session on Wednesday, which got me thinking how different we are. I'm about six years off sophomore year--a fact I still can't believe--but we're all young, right? I listen to new music. Okay, so not new popular music, but new music.

As I looked at the faces of the students taking their final exam I thought, "those guys don't look all that different from me (sans beardo). I could see them up here in my place." Then it hit me. There was a good reason why those faces looked like my face. I am a grad student. These were undergrads, yes, but they were undergrads in the middle of one of three tests that make up the whole class grade. Most of them probably didn't study enough. They were stressed, they were tired, and their spirits were getting ever-so close to being broken by finals.

Yes, they were becoming grad students, if only for a week and a half. Is it my extra six years on this earth what makes me responsible enough to be entrusted with 350 class grades. Nay. It is the qualities that I earned over those six years of job search rejection, paying rent and bills, working lame temp jobs, and having paychecks that make new undershirts look like a luxury.** Stressed, tired, and that sweet broken spirit with which I shall spring into the world this coming May with the most marketable skill in our economy's present state: low expectations.


*that's what you kids say, right?
**seriously, I really need new undershirts.

Alex's lessons on proper use of the word "literally": Part 1

INCORRECT: I make oatmeal for breakfast literally everyday.

CORRECT: I make oatmeal for breakfast almost everyday.

ALSO CORRECT: I spill oatmeal on the counter literally every time I make it. Cripes, what am I? Four?

Because inane iced with lazy tastes much sweeter

And they say that we millennials are too lazy to stand up for anything! I got an invitation recently to a Facebook "protest" group about the new site design. First of all, wasn't that over about 3 months ago? Seriously?

Okay, I've accepted that there are many (apparently over 1 million) people on there who are pretty upset about the "new" design. I would call them a bunch of whiners and call it a day, but whiners tend to give up after a while. I respect the devotion to this absurd use of activist energy. What I am surprised by... what got my attention this time was the length of this "protest." From the "event":

On December 15th, if we are still on the new facebook, let's all not login for one day ! But just before let's all put the pic of the group as profile picture to show that we are part of the facebook blackout !

One day?! You can't tear yourself away from Facebook for more than 24 hours for something that you say you care about? Besides that, one day isn't going to mean anything to them even if everyone does it. A month? That may hurt advertising a little. But a day? They might have to switch over to wiping with $50 bills instead of $100 for the day, but not much else.

I'm as big a fan of ridiculous as anyone. I say go ahead and be ridiculous. It gives me something to rant about. But why not be ridiculous for a longer time? Commit to the ridiculousness. Embrace your ridiculousity. Wield your mighty sword of absurdity over your head and strike down those oppressive website administrators! March to the ocean of version 1.0, you Superpoking Gandhis. Sit down on the seat that is your Logout button, oh Rosa Parks of the social networks.

Commit to it though. You're making us all look... ridiculous.