Question:

How the hell is Scrubs still on the air?

Some music I've found

So I've been finding plenty of new music lately.
I'll share some of my findings in the form of a playlist.

Bibio - Lovers' Carvings.
Gang Gang Dance - House Jam
Born Ruffians - Hedonistic Me
Foals - Red Sock Pugie
The XX - Basic Space
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Indiana
Metronomy - On Dancefloors
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Don't Haunt This Place
The Spinto Band - Did I Tell You
Soul Coughing - Rolling
Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
Oh No! Oh My! - Walk in the Park
The Tallest Man on Earth - The Gardner
Yeasayer's New Single - Ambling Alp

Here's that video.

Also, all my application stuff is officially at the schools, now that my last recommender sent in the letters. Here is the list if anyone is interested:
Yale, Johns Hopkins, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, UCSF, Oregeon Health & Science U, Washington U in St. Louis, UT. Now I wait. I'm really ready to not be an undergrad anymore. However, there is one more semester. I'm not sure what the best way to spend that time is. A programming class might be a good way to go. We'll see. I know being a grad student is still a student but something about saying I'm in a Ph.D. program just seems like a sign that I'm committed and focused. Those are things I need to have going on with me. There are some habits I'll have to form when I'm a grad student. Can't watch so much Hulu anymore. I need to start reading more. I'll be in an apartment so I'll have to walk the Homes more often. I've gotten spoiled with my ability to just put him in the yard. I'm thinking my next school will finally be one that I wear shirts for. I've never done that. But all the schools I applied to are worthy of some spirit I think. The possibility of not getting into any school is a little unnerving. I suppose I'll try to find a lab tech job if things turn out that way. I really hope to not hold a bachelor's in Neuroscience and start working as a waiter or something. If I do get into a school, it'll be quite a change. I'll be moving to a place that I may not have ever been before. Bring Homesly will be a challenge. I'm going to need to find some place that allows dogs and has an administrative center out of my way so they never see him. It'll be difficult but I'll pull it off. I look forward to living in a city. Dallas is a city of course. But a strange one indeed. And I look forward to not having to drive as much. In fact I hope to be able to sell my car. Anyway, file this under the irrelevant musings section.

Enjoy the tunes.

Funfunfunfest was, well, fun. (Warning: this post will take you forever to read if you do it right.)

Let's see.....

Big thing was seeing Yeasayer
Unfortunately you can't see us in the video but Jenna and I were right up front. It had to be done.
They mostly played new stuff. It was delicious. The upcoming album is going to be great.
They did play Sunrise though. That made my fest.

Also, Ratatat.
And more Ratatat.


They were a lovely end to the first day. They played seventeen years. Golden. Loved it.

We also saw a lovely little band called Foot Patrol. They sang all about foot fetishes. Had some dancers and some amusing costumes.


Nick Thune was on Day 2. Very funny. This is not him from the fest but here is a sample of how ridiculous he is.


Chelsea Perreti...also very funny. She played an extremely awkward tape of a guy screaming during sex and calling her his mom.


Royal Bangs was what we were first greeted by.

Let's see what else

Saw......(actual fest vids when available)
Atlas Sound
This Will Destroy You
Les Savy Fav (yes the singer and one other person are crowd surfing on a ladder)
Melt Banana
Why? put on a great show
Crystal Antlers
All Leather
No Age
Fuck Buttons
Vega

We missed some folks because it rained bad on Sunday and after soaking for 7 hours, we just couldn't deal any longer. The good stuff was Saturday though truth me told. Seeing Yeasayer was bomb and I can't wait til they come to Dallas so I can see them in a non-fest setting.

Anyway, it was a good time. The rain kinda blew but whatcha gonna do?

I should definitely be studying for physics right now.
Physics makes us all its bitches.

CoMO and what not

So it's been a bit. A couple weekends ago I went to Columbia Missouri for Mizzou's Homecoming.
Here are some highlights:

-Thai Kitchen and the perma-stoned waitress that told us our food looked good but smelled even better as she set it in front of us. Also, the vegetable creatures that distracted me most of the meal.
-Having a slap fight with one Rachel Canania.
-Kabobs and beer under a tent cover.
-Grilling up some brats.
-Almost dying at El Rancho.
-Not going to 63 Diner.
-Jenna’s purse taking a few Jello shots.
-Being given a large glass of green label by a generous student council president.
-Dozer.
-Hanging out with girls watching Dawn of the Dead while they laid around like dudes.
-Sleeping in the maid’s quarters.
-Being completely stopped on the highway just about to enter Missouri as a final fuck you from Sucklahoma.

I am also going to Funfunfunfest this weekend. Very excited.

I have started officially submitting applications to graduate programs in neuroscience. It's nerve-racking pressing that submit button.

I am being included as an author on a couple posters to the Cognitive Neuroscience Society conference 2010. It is being held in Montreal so I may be there next April. Very nice.

Here is a song I've had stuck in my head the last couple days:


Not much else to say at the moment.
I have been schooling a lot. I am learning a good amount about memory which is nice. Here is a question:
Can you delete a memory you already have? Think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind.
http://www.divshare.com/download/9169708-c63
This is a paper I did a presentation about. Basically they were able to get a rat to learn something simple. In this case it was "when you hear this tone, you're going to get shocked". Then they tested their memory. To do this, they played the tone and looked at how scared the rat was (how long the rat froze (rats have a deer-in-the-headlights kind of response to fear)). Then right at that moment that the rat was remembering the initial experience, they injected a drug. Then later when they tested the memory again, those rats that had been given the drug, did not show fear. One possibility is that the memory was actually erased. Another possibility is that the emotional arousal of it, the fear, was removed from the memory.
The idea that you can disrupt consolidation of a memory after learning is not new. Nor is the idea that you can disrupt reconsolidation of a memory after it is retrieved, but this paper is a clear example of it and has brought reconsolidation back into the spotlight.
A study that I have assisted in recently tracked the neural mapping of a location, by recording these things called place cells. Basically there are cells that fire when you are in a certain position in a room (for the rats it's on a maze). We then trained the rat to be afraid of a tone just like the above study did. When we played that tone while the rats were on the maze, we disrupted the place that the cells fired. Essentially we were able to get them to remap their environment on a neural level by playing a tone.

That's just some of the stuff I do/read.

I'm going to end it with a goofy song:



Have a good one. I'll let you know how funfunfunfest is.

P.S. My favorite pen died yesterday. This is upsetting.

So, saw Where the Wild Things Are on Imax this past weekend. I've seen a few complaints about it, but I thought it was very well done. The costumes were unbelievable. There was only one moment I could see the computer animation done. I'm not sure if that's because it was the only incident of that or if the others were just executed more cleverly. The soundtrack could be a bit repetitive at times but it was a nice theme running through the film. Mostly I think it was a film that could be enjoyed by an extremely varied audience.
I also loved Ira; he killed me:

I've been listening to some Talib Kweli the past couple of days. I have always appreciated his style but haven't listened to as much of just him (mostly just listened to black start and various mos def tracks on which he was featured).
Here's a nice one:

Applications are almost done.
It would've been much nicer to deal with this process when I wasn't also taking a full schedule of classes. But it'll be nice to have it done.

First, this is romance.

Second,
The entire city of Richardson, TX is infested with ants. If you're in the area take note. Just drive down Campbell. There are a crazy number of ant hills covering the medians. Some appear to be up to 12 inches tall. I only noticed because a little while back some ants moved into our house. Not in the normal way, like 'oh bummer man, we've got ants'. But rather, they imported sand into one of the rooms in the house and actually built an ant hill inside. I had to sweep up a whole ant hill and throw it out the back window. Richardson, please take care of this. Or perhaps we should move into a house that is more like a house and less like a tent.

Third,
I saw RTB2 at the Amsterdam Bar on Exposition in Dallas on Saturday. Luna Matto opened for them. Jenna and I went purely out of lack of something else to do. It ended up being a very nice spontaneous evening.
First we ran into this.
Or rather this.

We each picked up a tag from her tag sale. I kept it simple:



The Wit Gallery was quite nice. This is second time I accidentally stumbled upon it. The first was actually the night of its opening, which did not disappoint either. The man I assume to be Jay is very welcoming and willing to talk with people.

Then we went across the street to the Amsterdam Bar. The Bartenders are very willing to make suggestions which I like because I like to try new things/don't really care to choose if I don't have to.

Luna Matto was a very entertaining show. Her voice is so sweet. The recordings are not as loud as the show was. But both avenues to listening to this band are worth the time.

Then was RTB2. They delivered. We ended up scraping together the 5 singles we had between us to buy the EP. RTB2 consists of Ryan and Grady. Two seemingly sweet-hearted boys from Denton TX. If you hear of them playing, I'd recommend making the trip.

Here's some evidence
Beta Crush
Letters to a young Danny Kennedy

Later

Yeasayer - 2080/Tightrope (La Blogotheque's Take Away Show)

I can't wait to see these guys at funfunfunfest:


Yeasayer - 2080/Tightrope (La Blogotheque's Take Away Show)

Posted using ShareThis

First thing's first

I should be studying physics and applying for graduate schools. These are the most pertinent things in my life currently. I am studying neuroscience and plan to do that forever. I am interested in memory: the malleability of it, the process of it, the aftermath of remembering or forgetting. I am a pragmatist I think. I am a libertarian I think. I'm not particularly religious but I don't look down upon people who are.
This Blog will more or less be a means to post music that I'm particularly fond of at the moment, as well as neuroscience or other scientific work that I find especially interesting. I doubt I will put many of my opinions about the world or myself, as I find them annoying, but who knows.
I hope I keep this going, but again we'll see.

I will start by pointing out a group called Savath & Savalas. This is another moniker of Scott Herren. He is most well known I believe for his work as Prefuse 73. However, the album Apropa't under the name Savath & Savalas is what I believe to be some of his best work that I've heard.

Here is a song called Um girassol da cor de seu cabe:


Well hello blogging world and wish me luck on those more crucial things in my life than you.