Canto XXXV

I've just noticed that I've now made it out of Hell and into Purgatory. Only 66 more to go before I can finally start giving clever names to these posts! And my bracket is looking a little healthier. If the favorites continue their run tonight I'll be in great shape.

What a week. Been staying up late to finish up stuff, then sleeping in late and falling asleep in class. It's like I'm an undergrad again. But now Spring break is here! Yes, finally some time to work ahead! Maybe even do some "real" physics. There's plenty of stuff to do around the house, I don't think we've cleaned in 3 or 4 weeks and it's starting to show... Spring literally showed up this week, though. Both the usual Vernal Equinox, and we seem to be in a good thaw after last week's snow and everything just seems sunnier. It's up in the 50's and overcast. Spring is here, might as well get some spring cleaning done before the bugs start crawling in. The first spiders showed up earlier this week.

I plan on taking an easy weekend of cleaning and doing some errands on saturday, saturday night we're going to a concert, then being very lazy on sunday playing some video games and watching basketball. Time to kick back for a couple days. Next week should be fun for a change, just working on some stuff that I actually want to do.

Canto XXXIV

Well my bracket is in shambles. Not that I know much about college baskteball, but I should be doing better than people who pick based on mascots. Not good. My big sleeper bid was Louisville to the Final Four. With them in the second round, I think it's just about over for me. Oregon is getting pretty lucky this year in the tourneys, they seem to constantly be facing upsets and not the higher seeds. Hopefully they make the Elite Eight and shock the world by upsetting Florida. That would be awesome. So long as their 3 pointers keep falling, that's about all they need.

It's been crazy busy this last week and weekend. On friday I watched the Ducks game, but over the weekend I watched a total of 6 minutes of basketball. Saturday night returning late from the Institute, I watched the final 2 minutes of UCLA over Indiana, and Sunday watched the final few minutes of the blowouts of Kansas over Kentucky and USC over Texas. But next week is Spring Break, so I should be able to catch all of the Sweet-16 action. That's when it gets really good, right? No big Cinderellas this year, but the Ducks are still in it to win it.

Last week we had a bunch of prospective graduate students visit to see how cool it is to be at MIT. But we seem to be a pretty cool lot around here. The problem is that they visited as things are starting to get really busy. I've just got to make it through this week and everything will be alright. Spring break here I come!

Canto XXXIII

I just had to write about my movie-watching weekend. On saturday, went out with a bunch of guys to see 300. It was about what I expected. If you want to see a movie with lots of impalings, beheadings and limb-chopping, then this is your film. There was also a crab-man. I'm not sure where he fits in. The element of the fantastical and over-blown in this film I felt detracted from the "story". I love this story, in fact I re-read my Herodotus earlier in the week (no complaints about him being the 'father of lies' - still a valuable source for that era) about the Battle of Thermopylae. I won't go into a blow-by-blow (no matter how appropriate) into the various innacuracies. And the many different movies which were ripped off in different scenes. The weirdest was the E.T. one - if you see the movie, you'll know which scene. My last gripe is that they seriously undercut the Athenian contribution to the Persian Wars. I mean, this was an important battle, as was Plataea, but as far as I know every historian agrees (both ancient and modern) the deciding battle was Salamis. Does this even get a mention? And when the Spartans first show up at the pass, the Persian fleet is wrecked by storm. This is partly true (a significant fraction of the Persian fleet was lost due to a storm), but in actuality the fleet was held up by a much smaller Athenian contingent at the Straits of Artemisium, in a very similar fashion to that seen in Thermopylae only on the sea. We saw it in the new digital projection, and I must say the picture quality was amazing. You could really see every ab and pec in it's full glory, as the Spartans would have wanted.

And on sunday night Steph and I went to see The Good Shepherd. About the only thing everyone can say about this movie is that it was long. Not that bad, but not that good either. I guess I was just expecting more. Next weekend we're seeing The Illusionist, which I heard was quite good.

Last night Steph was talking dirty to me. I'm finishing up my dinner and thinking about doing some work when she says 'You want to watch Babylon 5?'. Very Nice.

Canto XXXII

Another 2 weeks. Well, school has come around but I keep trying to stay on top of things. Sadly no humorous anecdots to relay to everyone. Well, maybe one...

There was a google-stalking which took place recently that I was in the room for. This was not me, mind you, my stalking days are over. They ended up hitting a google-silver mine. Revealing (but not nude) photos and some other stuff. This led me to start thinking about what would be the different levels of victory for google-stalking.
Gold: Nude photos/pornography. Clearly if you find this about some random person you just met, this takes the cake.
Silver: Revealing photos/other (possibly) embarrassing material. Not as good as before, but certainly something that's both interesting and eye-brow-raising.
Bronze: A broad range of biographical stuff, but nothing too embarrassing. Stuff that a stalker might find interesting.
Note that finding a blog or other stuff the person put up him/her self doesn't count towards this prize - they put it out there for everyone else, including the google-stalkers of the world.

Still need to go through some old photos of our and get them up. Remember the bench in The Cube? And the stairs right in the middle of the entry way? And when the sparrows nest was in the dryer's heat exhaust and nothing was drying until they cleaned it out? The college years really are the best.

Kermit update: still hangin'. That's right, 3+ months of a Muppet being strung up next door.