Tom and Ray Magliozzi have the most contagious laughs in the history of laughing

Here's a way to test your poker face. Listen to this clip and try to make it all the way through without smiling. I've listened to it probably 10 times and I still can't do it.

An enemy for which even the Taliban are no match

I was reading today that 23 South Koreans were kidnapped by the Taliban while travelling in Afghanistan. The first hostage they killed was the pastor of a church, but - get this - his family, even though his body was returned to them, refuses to hold a funeral or even a memorial service for him until the Taliban release the other 22 hostages.

I am convinced this degree of altruism and love simply is not possible for humankind alone to achieve. Even in the face of imminent torture and murder of their own father, brother, husband or son, these people simply cannot be broken. It leaves me utterly awestruck.

My pianobrain, and "Phone-A-Friend"

I spend hours every day learning how to play Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor. It's terribly addicting. I can't play it as well as Artur Rubinstein, mind you, but even being able to play small segments of the concerto as well as he does makes buying this piano completely worth it. The same goes for Schumann's Träumerei. As short as it is (just one page), it is deceptively difficult to play the way he meant it to be played, as I quickly learned. Still, I am determined to learn both pieces (though I'm sure mastery of the latter will far precede that of the former).

I should also note a new tactic upon which I stumbled during my early struggles with this concerto. There are certain portions that seem almost absurd - one hand spanning several octaves in the same measure playing nothing but sixteenth-notes, for example. I realized, however, that if I train my eyes to pinpoint the target keys just before my hand reaches them, the accuracy of my fingers increases logarithmically. I know this sounds petty, but it's something I rarely do with simpler pieces; my eyes tend to wander and focus on several groups of keys at a time rather than on one specific key. With this new technique, my eyes are quite literally playing the entire concerto one step ahead of my fingers.

In other news, this morning Ralph (our technician), Swetha (our biotechnology grad student) and I were in the lab, and Jeff walked in and said, "I have a favor to ask of you three. I know somebody who is appearing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and I'm one of the candidates for his Phone-A-Friend lifeline. So if the phone rings today anytime between 11 am and 7 pm, make sure I'm the one who answers it."

That, I must admit, was not even in the same league of favors I expected him to ask of us. How bizarre.

I agree with Donald Trump? Wait, what?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I agree with Donald Trump. I feel all weird now.

My PI worked for two (2) Nobel laureates

I already knew Jeff got his Ph.D. at MIT, but what I didn't know is that both of his mentors were Nobel laureates: H. Robert Horvitz and Eric F. Wieschaus. Wow. I had seen publications with Jeff and Dr. Wieschaus's names on them, but I never knew who that guy was. Now I do, and now I am fearful.

Today was a "people day"

I didn't get much done at work today. I spent a good long while during the afternoon discussing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with the scholar Ms. Sarah Fettke, who pointed out a great many subtleties in this last book I would never otherwise have noticed. I wrote Bravo, Mrs. Rowling (pt. 2) this morning when I got to work, and I wrote a few e-mails too. I also got to chat a bit with Tammy, the Ph.D. student who just finished her rotation in our lab a couple weeks ago. When I got home from work I played Super Smash Brothers Melee with my roommate Cody for a while.

It was a people day, and it was long coming. Even I need one every once in a while.

P.S. If you would like to witness the phoenix-esque transition occurring within the blues world, feast your ears upon this:

P.P.S. I haven't quite figured out why I'm postscripting this. It's not even a letter. Oh well.

Bravo, Mrs. Rowling (pt. 2)

I spent the rest of last night trying to figure out why the Harry Potter books are so devilishly addicting. I think it really boils down to one thing: imagination. Mrs. Rowling can spark the reader's imagination like no author I know.

I don't know exactly how she does this, but without a doubt the most significant factor I personally have noticed is all the names. Whether characters (Neville Longbottom), institutions (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, or SPEW), spells ("Expelliarmus!"), items (Marauder's Map), towns (Hogsmeade), buildings (The Leaky Cauldron), or anything else, Mrs. Rowling brings Harry Potter's world to life with names I'll never forget.

There are certainly other tactics the author employs to suck the reader in, but it's really hard for me to describe them. I've found that, when I pick up the book, it takes only about three lines for me to become completely and hopelessly immersed in the story. It's as if there's a movie playing in my mind, and all I have to do is sit back and watch. My imagination goes wild, and it seems as though instead of the words on the page forming the images in my head, the images are themselves so vivid and detailed that my brain is actually interpreting them as words that appear on the page. There are times I'm convinced there is no way this story could be fiction; surely the author must be able to see inside my head and she is simply transcribing the events. This is also why I will never watch the Harry Potter films: no amount of CGI or acting talent will ever be able to produce a graphic recreation of this epic that is not utterly eclipsed by that which has been crafted in my brain. Anything the cinema folks manage to create, even if it's the best film ever made, will be inexorably disappointing.

In any case, I applaud Mrs. Rowling, not only for creating such an unforgettable, truly epic tale, but also for something even more important: for reminding kids, teenagers, and adults alike of the raw power of the human imagination.