Wow. I’m impressed. It seems our good ol’ home state has a mighty slick tourism web site. Very well done—it’s all nice and modern underneath, and is exceptionally pretty to look at. It’s even got some of that distressed look that all the cool kids on the Web have been sporting lately. Way to go, Tennessee! Just thought I’d share. 😛

The Internet has been chuckling to itself since mid-October, when reporter Ric Romero at KABC in Los Angeles got a little too gushy about the “exploding blog” community. (Ow. Sounds painful. Place on ground. Point away from face. :razz:) Related or not, there seems to be a little bubble of student-blog-related stories going around, like “School orders students to remove … 

O Liane Hansen! What would I ever do without you? Not have at least one post a week, evidently. Somewhere during my early morning trek for doughnut‑y sustenance, I picked up the end of her talk with Nathaniel Lachenmeyer about his book, 13: The Story of the World’s Most Popular Superstition. When I came in, they were discussing the phenomenon … 

I received information about the Xi State Organization Essay Contest the other day, sponsored each year by The Delta Kappa Gamma Society. There’s some prize money at stake, for any of you budding freelancers who might be interested: $300 for 1st place, $200 for 2nd, and $100 for 3rd. (That’ll buy a few Moleskines, that will.) If you’d like more … 

The saxophone has been my primary instrument since about college, I suppose, so my ears perked up this morning when NPR’s Liane Hansen interviewed Michael Segell is about his new book, The Devil’s Horn, which traces the 160-or-so years of the saxophone’s history. Who knew that there were attempts made on Adolphe Sax’s life while he was developing his instrument? …