This isn’t exactly news — laptop bans show up on many an English department syllabus in my neck of the woods — but it did re-stimulate my amazement at students tapping away on laptops in classes. I sat in on an undergraduate class on Ulysses last year and every day I watched two students pull out their computers and play on Facebook or instant message people for the entire class. That irritated me on three levels:

#1 — I hate distractions of any sort, and people tapping on keyboards is right up there with the sound of apple-chomping when it comes to driving me crazy. It’s even worse when I know the tapping is unrelated to whatever meeting or class I’m in.

#2 — Why come to class at all if you won’t even pretend to pay attention?

#3 — (probably most important) I’m jealous. Do you know how awesome it would have been to have a little laptop or iPhone to play with during boring economics classes? Really damn awesome. Instead, my brain was infected with the type of mid- to late-90s theorizing that got us into this horrible world-wrecking economic mess we’re in today. I’d have given anything to be playing Mafia Wars on Facebook during those lectures, and maybe we’d all be better off if everyone else had been distracted, too. All you jerks who got As in Econ during the 90s: THANKS A LOT. I’ll take my C-average (but A-average in my major, English) self over world-wrecking any day. At least I can sleep at night. In my cardboard box.

Anyway, I banned laptops in my classes solely because of a corollary to Irritation #3: If I couldn’t have one, you can’t either. Because, future students of Professor MoodyTunes who are reading this, I know what you’re doing. I was a bad student, and now I’m a teacher. That’s the worst possible scenario for you because I know how tired/bored/lazy you are, and I know your tricks, and I enjoy arbitrary rules.

And really, isn’t that the best lesson I could possibly teach? Welcome to adulthood, and please grab your List of Arbitrary Rules at the door. Memorize the List for a quiz tomorrow. But be aware that, by tomorrow, the List will be completely different.

P.S. — NO. There is no extra credit. Never. In fact, I’ll lower your grade for asking. Don’t even get me started on extra credit because that morphs into entitlement issues and I’m not smart enough to express my feelings on that.

First, here’s a site called RainyMood.com. Visit the site, click on the giant Play button, and you’ll get a 15-minute loop of rainstorm noises. If you listen closely you’ll hear some music in the background. I think. It’s creepy. When I write I like to have music on, usually instrumental stuff because lyrics distract me, and now I have an alternative: torrential downpours.

Second, a news article about a boulder crashing through a house. I repeat: A BOULDER CRASHED THROUGH A HOUSE. A woman was asleep in her bed, then wham-o, a boulder stopped in for a visit. She wasn’t hurt, and now she has a great story to tell. This was not particularly close to me…but it was in the same state so I’m going to be on the lookout for boulders anyway. Especially when tornado season starts.

Thesis Time also means Procrastinating Time so I upgraded WordPress, too. That’s the software that runs this whole operation. I think it’s been a year and a half since the last upgrade. Everything seems much improved. For example, the list of Tags over there on the right no longer runs over into the gray area of the sidebar. Admittedly, most of the new stuff has to do with the admin panel that nobody else sees, but still, the changes should lead to some improvements in what you see showing up here. That doesn’t include content…there’s no software out there to fix my broken head.

I always liked making random polls and posting them but the method was clumsy and annoying back in the days of WordPress 1.9 or whatever it was (we’re at 2.8.6 now, they tell me). Now it’s not so bad, which is cool because I feel like making some polls. So I’ll start that on Monday.

That’s it! Have a good weekend.

Now some sparkler photos:

For those playing along at home, just set your camera’s shutter release to 6 to 10 seconds or so, buy some sparkly stuff, go out at night, and make some shapes…

I don’t think this is simply the result of a short attention span. I think it’s a form of imagination at work, and I’m sure it happens to some of you, too. I start imagining things based on what is being read to me, but instead of imagining along with the story, I take several detours here and there, and before I know it I’ve missed a few minutes of the recording and have no idea what the reader-person is talking about. Then it becomes annoying. There’s a voice in the car prattling along about characters and events I don’t recognize, and I feel left out, and I start to sulk. Who are you talking about? Why does it sound like everyone is having so much fun? Who is Jimmy, and how did he end up with seventy-two tons of something in his basement? What is the “something?” Is it lard? Because he’s making the world’s largest mincemeat pie? Did he choose mincemeat because he likes saying the word “mincemeat?” Mincemeat mincemeat mincemeat. Is there meat in mincemeat pie? What kind of meat? All kinds of meat? Who chooses? Pork, beef, and ostrich, all minced together? Is it sweet or is it just plain meaty? And so on…

What’s interesting is that I can play a music CD — say a three-hour live concert — and become totally engrossed in that, singing along with almost every lyric, not noticing the progress I’m making on the highway. Somehow I stay connected to music, and fiction-read-aloud sends me off into the ether.

This is what I’m bringing along. It’s all podcasts, as a matter of fact, and no 34-hour Stephen King epics. I’ll start small.

From The New Yorker’s fiction podcasts:

Marisa Silver reading Peter Taylor’s “Porte-Cochere”
Tobias Wolff reading Denis Johnson’s “Emergency”
Louise Erdrich reading Lorrie Moore’s “Dance in America”
TC Boyle reading Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain”
Donald Antrim reading Donald Barthelme’s “I Bought a Little City”

Three episodes of “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me”

One episode of “This American Life”

I’m scared of this project, especially with “This American Life” in there. Ira Glass and the other NPR reporters who speak to me in their hushed, confident, conspiratorial, ironic-yet-not-ironic-enough-to-make-fun-of-their-”ironic”-voice lullabies…well, they put me to sleep.

I need some “Focus” VitaminWater and a bucket of Sour Patch Kids. I feel like I’m getting ready to study for a standardized test (and I was never very good at that).

EDIT: I added Car Talk to the podcast list. I like Car Talk, and I like how they say podcast. “Pawd-cast.” Should be lots of fun.

So, thank you for your faithful service, Mr. Coffee.

It’s a funny comparison to my overpriced dish rack, which is from a company called “simplehuman.” If I really was a simple human would I require all this stuff to (as the company says on their web site) “live efficiently?” Couldn’t I simply dry dishes with a towel? No. That would be too simple.