Many moons ago, I had some blood work done as part of the process of donating my blood to the researchers where I work.

Yesterday, we had a repeat performance, during which it was ascertained that my blood is frakking awesome. Peruse the data for yourself, and tremble before my high-density lipoproteins.

Yes, this update is pointless. No, I don’t particularly care.

Via The Guardian, Sir David Attenborough on creationism, and its teaching in schools:

“It’s like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five…”

My friend Big Rob (linke to the ryghte) apparently has a series of albums on Facebook which he has taken to calling the “Boredom Basket.” I wouldn’t know from personal experience, of course, because I hate Facebook. In any case, I will take a face from Big Rob’s book, and start my own nonsensical collection of rants. Erm, that is, a new nonsensical collection of rants.

What is it about panini, olives, and wine that make for the best meal ever in time? Oh…well, probably the wine. My parents returned from France today, and looking at all their foodly fotos made us all rather esurient. I made a small batch of the above. It was delicious.

Before picking my folks up at the airport, I picked up a set of Logitech X-540 speakers. I’d been having a problem with sound in Vista even before GLaDOS (the original post on the subject is here). Basically, my old Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card was incompatible with Vista, but I found some XP drivers that worked “most of the time.” Unfortunately, when they failed, they failed spectacularly. Imagine listening to the new Metallica album (which kinda rocks, btw) full blast, and suddenly the next song is nothing but blazingly loud static. This was suboptimal. I realised that my motherboard had on-board audio, but my speakers didn’t have the proper connector (S/PDIF). It was either get new speakers with the S/PDIF connector, or a new sound card. Of course, I did neither, and instead just got the aforementioned Logitechs—not digital, I know, but they were cheap and well-reviewed. Well, they’re working great now. At first I was somewhat dismayed, as the ‘woofer was producing a terrible rattling noise. I am, however, an idiot, and only later realised it was because I didn’t take the plastic protector off of the woofer’s “air intake”…and thus the plastic itself was rattling. That taken care of, here I am listening to some fine tunes in glorious 5.1. And thus far, I haven’t had my face melted off by static or lava. Check mate.

Speaking of tunes, go check out last.fm’s tag radio here: http://www.last.fm/listen/globaltags/foo. Just replace “foo” with the kind of music you’re Norah Jonesing for, and let thousands of users and a rough approximation of a mixture-of-experts algorithm guide the rest. You might even come across some free downloads. Or some music you’ll download for free anyway.