Apocalypse Now (Redux)

We've just been informed that the department's budget is going to be cut again. As of right now, the major cut is that the department will no longer be paying for travel to academic conferences for students or faculty. More cuts have been promised soon.

The travel thing is a big deal, but we can still get funding through grants and other organizations on campus. What I'm worried about, and what people are starting to panic about, is what is going to be cut in the coming weeks. Rumor has it that certain software is becoming too expensive for the department to afford... we'll see.

I like this

I enjoy the exploits of the British Batman.

From Knight and Squire #2 by Paul Cornell and Jimmy Broxton, DC Comics

Content!

This blog has been in a coma lately, mostly due to other projects (namely Grad School).  With any luck I'll be updating more frequently soon.

For now though, here is another playlist of stuff I've been listening to in the lab.

Sharpg- Sharon Van Etten

Life Prowler- No Age

Fountain Stairs- Deerhunter

Boys are Fine- Smith Westerns

Fed from Her Hand- Demon's Claws

Narrow with the Hall- Women

Youth Haunts- Weekend

Sink the Dynasty- Zola Jesus

Listening to everything in a row like this, I'm struck by how much the current crop of indie rockers sound like they're making music from the 1960's.  Check out the middle of the playlist to see what I mean.

Commenting

Ordinarily this blog doesn't get much in the way of feedback. Recently though, I've started getting a lot of anonymous, mean-spirited, comments on posts made weeks or months ago.

Though I've been neglecting it recently, I like using this blog as a way to improve my writing and articulate my thoughts. Feedback, though rare, is a part of that. To put it mildly, the tone of the recent comments has been neither interesting nor constructive.

I'm not disabling comments or disallowing anonymous commenting, but I've changed some things in the background so that comments made on old posts (30+ days old) will be screened before they appear online. In the spirit of open and free communication I'd rather not screen comments at all, but I also don't want hateful comments appearing in a space that I ostensibly sponsor.

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

I'm currently working my way through another free trial of Netflix.   Mostly I've been fooling around with the selection of stuff available to watch instantly.  The selection is still limited, but I've found a useful website for tracking the best stuff thats available.

Besides random episodes of Anthony Bourdain I've mostly been watching A Bit of Fry a Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's sketch show from the late eighties/early nineties.  I've seen sketches here and there before, but watching the shows as they were originally broadcast really reinforces the (slightly) higher brow Monty Python tone.



I'm really enjoying it so far, though I feel like I'd probably like it more if I understood any of the cultural references being thrown around.  Still, its well worth checking out.