A little mid-week link blogging

Just a few odds and ends in no particular order:

• I'm usually not a fan of "clever" art, but these are just cool.
  
  
• Considering how much I dislike J-Lo, this track really is strangely addictive (though not as much as this). I suppose any thing gets better when you add Stevie Wonder.
  
  
• I'm giving serious consideration to taking a few art history classes next semester over at the U. Not really in love with the idea of Art in the Dark, but there are some definite gaps in my knowledge that could stand filling.
  
  
• Soma FM is already streaming Christmas music. A few minutes ago, as i was about to get up, they started playing Jimmy McGriff's version of "Santa Claus is Coming/White Christmas" and I suddenly found that I couldn't get up until it was over.
  
  
• In answer to Dwayne: Rope, Top Hat, My Man Godfrey, Metropolis, Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Duck Soup, Adams Rib, Double Indemnity, and All Quiet on the Western Front.
  
  
• For anyone who's interested, don't forget that the Leonids peak on Saturday night.
  
  

[edit] Looks like the Leonids might not happen here after all... damnit.[/edit]

The gangs all here...

I’ve been seeing a fair amount of good art but a fair amount of it was only fair; I really still don’t have much of a drive to write about any of it. It’s a damned good thing this isn’t how I make my living. I’m not sure if it’s that what I’m seeing just isn’t compelling or that I’m just not in a frame of mind to be compelled right now.

I’ve been teaching all week; Copyright yesterday and the first of two podcasting classes today. I sucked. Copyright went ok (not my best performance), but the network was crawling slow and the instructor computer crashed three times while I was trying to teach the podcasting class… hard to teach an internet class when you can’t get to the !@#$ing internet. This is when I discovered I suck at vamping. I don’t think I was always this bad at it, but entertaining a room full of faculty while troubleshooting computer problems is apparently a trick I’ve forgotten how to perform. I hope to hell that Friday’s podcasting class goes smoother.

In other news, I was down at my grandmother’s place for the Orionids Saturday night. I saw a little over 50 meteors for the hour I managed to keep myself awake… no where near the best show I’ve seen, but not bad. For anyone interested, the Leonids peak on Saturday, November 19. I’m not sure we live far enough east to get the best part of the show, but it should be worth turning out for.

When we got back in town, Amber and I went over to Chandler and Daniel’s for the highlight of the weekend, a pumpkin carving party. After dark, we went in to watch "Art School Confidential." I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a party film, but if you're into quirky or have ever been to art shcool, it's very defenitely worth your time. I know party stories are supposed to be “over” so I’ll leave it at that and just let you check out the pictures if you’re so inclined…


[edit]I've been trying to make this post from the Flickr XML-RPC service for a little over half an hour... I finally gave in and logged into Blogger. I guess that Flickr and the new Blogger Beta don't play well together[/edit]

Astronomy Note: Orionids 2006

Tomorrow night, October 21, will be the peak of the Orionid Meteor shower this year. The radiant is a little to the left of the constellation Orion (hence "Orionid"). The Orion will rise about midnight, with best viewing being about 1am. Everything I've read says that they may tend toward being a little dim, so city viewing may not be particularly good, but it is a new moon and that will help.