Oh Dear

It appears that I got more sun at the pool than I thought. Maybe it’s a good thing that my parents turned up the air conditioning after all. I wouldn’t have said that five minutes ago, but five minutes ago I hadn’t realized that I was sunburned. And we’re going to the beach tomorrow, which is another fine opportunity to get sunburned. Can’t wait.

In other news, IUP beat the hell up on Cheyney today, winning 49-0. I couldn’t watch the game, of course, and I probably wouldn’t even if I could, but I can check the final score on ESPN’s ScoreCenter app, which is really damn cool.

Until tomorrow.

Friday Faves

I’ve got some good stuff this week, you guys.

• In the potentially-irresponsible-reporting category, we have people reporting that Brand New might just put out new music this summer. I kinda freaked out when I read the headline of that Radio 104.5 post but then I read the article and was knocked back down to earth. I couldn’t believe that anyone was actually reporting a new Brand New record based on a now-deleted tweet from some guy who claimed to have spoken to Jesse Lacey at the Shone show. And now I’m sharing the link, so am I any better? I just couldn’t let it go without discussing it a little. I think I’m trying to will a new Brand New record into existence.
• In the aww-yeah-my-alma-mater-rules category, the hottest college of 2013 is Indiana University of Pennsylvania! I’m so proud 🙂 Two of my friends (fellow super-hot IUP alumni) shared the link on Facebook this afternoon and I had to read it immediately. Didja know that IUP was the top party school in the country 20 years ago? And now we’re the hottest college. But I will still have to explain the name of the school (no, it has nothing to do with the state of Indiana or any university there) in every job interview I ever have; it’s just not fair.
• In the weekly-adorable-animal category, we have Casanova, the Adventure Aquarium’s new baby penguin. The aquarium hasn’t set up a live stream of Casanova (if only!), but the video on Philly.com is face-meltingly cute.

In other news, I came up to my parents’ house yesterday. (I had to come up, there are fastnachts.) I stopped at the second Tampa Wawa (the one near USF) on my way. Let’s think about this story for a second. I stopped at Wawa on my way to my parents’ house to get fastnachts. It’s like I’m living in PA or something; it’s insane.

I (finally) got a meatball hoagie at Wawa and asked the cashier about soft pretzels. I intend to harass Wawa employees about soft pretzels until they get them or I leave, whichever comes first. (Oh please let it be me leaving.) I’m so glad that Wawa is here but they’re not really Wawas until they have pretzels.

Until tomorrow.

Random

Just a quick post with a couple of random things I found on the interwebs today:

• IUP’s men’s and women’s basketball teams were selected to their respective NCAA Division II Tournaments.  Go Crimson Hawks!  (Yes, I know that’s a dumb team name.  It’s not my fault that the NCAA made them give up the team name they had when I was a student.  I still think they should’ve gone with Squirrels or Jumpin’ Jimmies.)  This year I found out about it before the tournament started, which is better than a couple of years ago when I stumbled upon the men’s team playing in the championship game on TV.  (An IUP team on national television – it was weird.)  And then they lost 😦
• It turns out that AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) is still a thing.  Who knew?  I saw an ad for it on Spotify this morning and had to check it out.  I was kinda tempted to download it, but AIM will never be as awesome as it was when my college roommate and I would carry on two separate conversations, one spoken and one on AIM, while in the same room.

Okay, it’s past my bedtime (for reals).

Until tomorrow.

It’s Groundhog Day!

And I’m watching Groundhog Day. Synergy. (And other meaningless business buzzwords.)

Also, this is the first time I’ve ever chosen to watch CMT. Clearly I need to buy Groundhog Day on DVD.

I feel like Groundhog Day (the holiday) isn’t much of a big deal here in Florida. Of course, we don’t so much have winter here, either. Who cares if spring comes early or not?

I don’t think I paid much attention to Punxsutawney Phil and the goings-on at Gobbler’s Knob when I was a kid. But ever since I went to college in western PA, I pay attention. Of course, when I was in college, Groundhog Day was just another excuse to drink excessively. I never made the pilgrimage to Punxsy (I hate the cold), but I knew people who went.

Punxsy will always be linked to IUP for me. For one thing, IUP has a campus in Punxsy. And my all-time favorite teacher, Mrs. McManus, a fellow IUP grad, did her student teaching in Punxsy. She used to tell us stories about the festivities.

And as it happens, Phil saw his shadow today, which means six more weeks of winter. Considering that winter has been pretty mild this year, I don’t know that anyone is too bummed about it.

Until tomorrow.

A New Hope (Or Something)

I apologize for the Star Wars reference.  I couldn’t help myself.  I was trying to come up with a name (and hopefully a topic) for this post and I had nearly settled on “A New Beginning” when I decided that I liked “A New Hope” better.  They both kind of fit.  I like to think of a new week (or month or year) as a chance to start over, hopeful that I will have learned from the mistakes of the past week/month/year.

For all that I start each new semester hoping that I will learn better habits, I give myself the first week off.  The first week of classes features intimidating syllabi and attempts to figure out the best ways to spend my time; I don’t want to expect too much of myself.

No, it’s the second week when I should start waking up early and knowing which courses or projects need my attention on which days.  In that spirit, I made sure to spend some time today getting myself prepped for the week ahead, even though MLK Day appears to be the only federal holiday USF gets off in the spring.

It’s funny, though.  To the best of my remembrance, IUP’s Spring Semester always started the day after MLK Day.  I’ve gotten more or less accustomed to the (to my mind) weird schedules of Florida schools, but every now and then something like that just strikes me as odd.

Here’s hoping I can continue this good behavior for the rest of this week (and beyond).

Until tomorrow.

Pittsburghese

I finally got around to listening to the latest Grammar Girl podcast (available to read or listen to here) and as soon as I saw the name of the episode (“Needs Washed”) I knew it would be about Pittsburghese (sometimes called Yinzer). Well, really it’s about regional dialects, but it focuses on Pittsburghese. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane that came from hearing GG discuss the bizarre words and constructions that amused and/or annoyed me when I was in college. Unfortunately, it was clear that she didn’t get a Pittsburghese speaker to write the pronunciations phonetically. After all, everyone knows that “needs washed” would be pronounced “needs worshed.”

I will admit to yelling at my computer when she apparently decided that all Pennsylvanians speak Pittsburghese (about halfway through the podcast). I hate to break it to you, GG, but I moved to (southeastern) PA when I was 5 and the first time I ever heard “needs washed” was when I moved to western PA at 18. This is not to say that Philly doesn’t have its own linguistic quirks (“going down the shore” being a particular favorite of mine), but the verb “to be” generally shows up where it should.

Thing #9: Video Sites

Today’s “thing” is video sites, specifically YouTube, the granddaddy of them all. (Interesting side note: one of the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley, went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, my alma mater. Not that I ever met the guy, I just think it’s cool that one of the YouTube guys went to IUP. Sadly this fact is not widely known and has done nothing to erase the confusion most people feel when they first see or hear the name Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It’s a PA state school located in the town of Indiana, PA; it’s really not that complicated. But I digress wildly.) Of all the “things” I’ve covered so far, YouTube is the only one that I embraced immediately upon learning of it. Like most people, I use YouTube almost exclusively for entertainment purposes, but I see it’s potential for libraries, professional organizations, and education. A quick search led me to the YouTube channels for the ALA, the Library of Congress, and the Free Library of Philadelphia (whose most recent posting featured the Phillie Phanatic!).

As I’ve said before, blogging is new to me and so is the embedding of media into blogs. Luckily, the process to embed videos in WordPress is pretty simple. I ran into a bit of trouble when I first tried to embed the video because WordPress didn’t accept the shortened URL that YouTube gave me when I hit the Share button, but I got around that by simply copying the actual URL for the page. Everything seems to be working just fine now.