Beardvember update!

I can't believe I'm only about halfway done with the month, because my beard is so insanely long right now, far more than I've ever had it before. I'm toying with the idea of trying some sort of actual facial hair style at the end of the month, since I'll have all this hair to work with. Interestingly, my dad told me that I have the same hairless patches that he does - I guess it's genetic!

xkcd

I'm sure most all of my TJ friends know about xkcd, but I figured I'd share for the uninitiated. xkcd is a webcomic, which is like any old comic in a newspaper except that it's published independently online by the cartoonist. Here's today's strip:

This pretty much sums up what many people love about xkcd: nerd humor! His website warns that "this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)". If you're ever at a loss for what a comic means, here's another wonderful website with (often very sarcastic) explanations: http://xkcdexplained.com/. Thankfully, not all xkcd comics require a physics PhD to appreciate. See some more good selections after the jump:

Hiromi Uehara

Another group that my friend Butchko made me aware of: this is Hiromi Uehara and her quartet called Hiromi's Sonicbloom playing songs from their album Time Control. In the tradition of all the great jazz pianists, she gets very, well, into her music and ends up looking pretty silly.

Seriously though, she is an absolutely fantastic pianist with a great band behind her. Her Wiki page that she met Chick Corea at a young age and was tutored by Ahmad Jamal at Berklee, and boy does it show. Well worth a listen.

Beardvember

As you may or may not know, I am doing Beardvember this year, also known as No Shave November. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Only 7 days in, and it's already getting kinda itchy. It's going to be pretty ridiculous by the end of the month o.o

Musical obsessions of today

A few songs have been keeping me addicted lately, by which I mean I've had them on repeat and have each racked up almost 20 plays on iTunes already. In order of my getting them:



This song is courtesy of Arthi (and I believe Kevin sent it to her). It sounds very 80s, but was in fact released in 2007, and it's catchy as anything



Butchko gave me this one. Again very addicting, which would explain why I'm addicted to it!



I heard this one last night in someone else's room, and even though it was indeed a good song, I knew I'd heard it somewhere before. Eventually, I figured out that an instrumental version of it had been used in UPS commercials!

Hello World!

This is basically going to be my personal dumping ground for things I think are cool, funny, interesting, or generally deserve the notice of whoever actually reads this, which will probably end up being just my family and girlfriend. I also plan to keep this updated throughout this summer (Carolina Crown MMX!) ala JWebb's blog.