It’s not because grad school life is busy (though it sometimes is) or because writing for class leaves me less than eager to write anything else during my down time (though it sometimes does). It’s because, since I started school full-time, I no longer seem to have anything interesting to share with y’all. I’ve lost track of current events, music, and the more interesting corners of the interwebs as I’ve baked my brain into an academic jelly that, much like the meat-filled Jell-O casserole below, is filled with all sorts of weird crap that I suspect we’d all rather not talk about too much.

If sadness were a food.

Don’t get me wrong. I love school. I just haven’t quite figured out how to do it full-time while maintaining the fun, non-school things that make me feel like a relatively functional member of the greater universe. But I will! In the meantime, please accept my horrible picture of a 1960s meat and gelatin casserole as a conciliatory offering.

(Photo courtesy of Lileks.com’s “The Institute of Regrettable Cheer,” which is quite possibly my favorite site on THE ENTIRE INTERNET. If you’ve never wasted full mornings or afternoons perusing its pages of epically bad American kitsch, consider this tip Conciliatory Offer #2.)

“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” the Dum Dum Girls

The Wrath of Khan v. The Thing!

Akira v. Moon!

It’s the March Madness we’ve all been dreaming about … Vote early and often. (Via Patty O’Toole)

Also, this.

Sooo good!

Click Sarah's enormous tatas for the full article.

Question to all the comic book lovers in my life: Are you familiar with these artists? Is it possible that they’re kidding? I mean, they’re kidding, right?

Right?

Points to Patty O’Toole for the assist.

1. Gemini, Wild Nothing
2. High Violet, The National
3. Clinging to a Scheme, The Radio Dept.
4. Teen Dream, Beach House
5. Speed Is Everything, The Bomb
6. Love Remains, How to Dress Well
7. There Is Love in You, Four Tet
8. Crystal Castles (II)
9. Nothing Hurts, Male Bonding
10. Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter

Tracks:

1. “Song for the Helenas,” The Bomb
2. “Crown on the Ground,” Sleigh Bells
3. “Live in Dreams,” Wild Nothing
4. “My Old Brittle Bones,” Dreamend
5. “Lemonworld,” The National
6. “Heaven’s on Fire,” The Radio Dept.
7. “Baptism,” Crystal Castles
8. “Hospice Gates,” Lower Dens
9. “Paris Cafes,” The Art Museums
10. “Crush,” Abe Vigoda

As always, I’ve got a mix CD in the works with samplings of most of this stuff on it. Let me know if’n you’d like a copy.

“I am horrified by the violent attack on Representative Gabrielle Giffords and many other innocent people by a wicked person who has no sense of justice or compassion. I pray for Gabby and the other victims, and for the repose of the souls of the dead and comfort for their families.”

I’m sorry, what? Could someone explain to me nice and slow how someone who has played an increasingly significant role in cultivating the dangerously partisan political environment that our country is currently suffocating in could have the audacity to act shocked and horrified that something like this could have happened to a woman who was already receiving threats because of her pro-health reform, anti-insane Arizona immigration law stances? What the fuck?

In his many years on this earth, one would think that McCain would have managed to come across the folkloric warning to be careful what you wish for.

(Thanks to Sarah for the assist.)