This is just a reminder (nobody go running out buying bread’n’milk, please, because you didn’t read this all the way through!) that, if everything’s still working correctly, you can make Ferrellweb.com your one-stop school closing information resource! :ponder: If school has been officially cancelled (at least according to Channel 9), this badge will automagically appear at the top of the … 

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? … 

National Public Radio’s Melissa Block interviewed Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser this afternoon. In the course of the interview, Mr. Kooser had some interesting things to say about his writing and revision process. You know how I’m always talking about listening to artists and writers for inspiration, encouragement, and general insight into your own creative processes? … 

Voting for class officers begins tomorow, October 19th, and will run through Monday, October 24th. Here’s a link to the voting site, if you’d like. You’ve got plenty of time, so log on at home, grab a computer in the library, or even ask me to use my classroom computer sometime (not smack in the middle of class, thankyouverymuch), and … 

Rather that actually wait until I had more stuff to put there (what fun would that be, anyway?), I’ve opened a new subsection under Extras, called Downloads, Etcetera. Eventually, if I can pull it off, it may feature desktop pictures, icons, and other English/Ferrellweb‑y gear. Right now, though, it’s got one sparsely-populated section: BigHead Bookmarks. Last year, I whipped together …