Because it was thunderstorming all day yesterday, we were forced to see two movies. Death to Smoochy is an incredibly funny, original movie. Proof that Edward Norton can act, Robin Williams can be evil, and mainstream movies don't have to follow formulas. Edward Norton makes a SNAG seem like a pretty cool guy, instead of someone who needs to be punched a lot (a la Fight Club).
Panic Room is a fantastic thriller. Jodie Foster is tough and smart, as always, but it's not old yet. Speaking of Fight Club, David Fincher is up to all of his old zooming tricks, but they still work. Trust the man who made Se7en, the best thriller of the late '90's, and the woman who starred in Silence of the Lambs, the best thriller since Hitchcock, to make an edge of the seat good use of a rainy afternoon.
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(4)
08:14:49 AM,
Sunday 31 March 2002
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I'm a firm believer that one should not be awakened by thunder at 5:30am in March. But since that has happened, I'm sure not going to spend the day standing in water waving around metal surveying equipment.
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(2)
09:09:18 AM,
Saturday 30 March 2002
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From the land of obscure and lame quizzes comes "Which NC State Building Are You?"
What NC State Building are you???
respond? (8)
04:01:44 AM, Friday 29 March 2002
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It's 3:30 am. Remi is asleep and I am not. Something is very wrong in the world.
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(5)
03:40:33 AM,
Friday 29 March 2002
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A god so small anybody could understand him.
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02:26:19 PM,
Thursday 28 March 2002
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Scary. Unexplained black area off the coast of Florida.
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(19)
12:50:16 PM,
Tuesday 26 March 2002
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Since I know many people who loved St. John's and got the best educations they could imagine there, and that certainly includes myself, I thought maybe it might be nice if I made a list of the most important things that I got out of St. John's.
1)No fear of any text or any task on any subject. I've done Greek, Driesch, Kant, Hegel, vector calculus, Heisenberg, Lobachevsky, and Einstein. Of what need I be afraid?
2)Analytic ability I've worked through so many mathematical proofs; I know all their tricks. I can take any set of assumptions to its logical conclusions, finding any contradictions, then take those new conclusions and make new hypotheses and continue. And that's a huge part of the work that I do now.
3)The power of the dialectic I fear no one here in a discussion. I can explain my thoughts, back them up from the text, and find logical fallacies in the conversation. When it's my turn to lead the discussion, I know how to ask an opening question that makes their blood boil, so I can just sit back and listen. And, occasionally, I make the weaker speech the stronger.
4)Wonderful ideas and wonderful books I quote Bacon all the time. All of the books I wrote my essays on are still fresh in my mind. They are mine to do with as I will. When I get annoyed with a capitalist pig I can quote Marx. Very few of them even understand the ideas, let alone have read the books. And when I need to get away, not just be diverted, there is no finer escape then Middlemarch, The Brothers Karamazov, Pride and Prejudice, or Frost or Yeats or Wallace Stevens.
St. John's isn't for everybody. But it was for me. I'm sorry you hated it. I hope that you will find something that you love as much as I loved St. John's. I'm sorry you didn't get much out of it. I hope you will find something that does you as much good as St. John's did me.
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(16)
08:27:46 AM,
Friday 22 March 2002
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I mentioned to one of our computer folks that I was wasting time and he pointed me to a weblog with which I was not familiar, but which seems to be pretty entertaining. The quotes section alone could waste days.
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01:33:21 PM,
Thursday 21 March 2002
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People who consider themselves intuitive aren't.
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(3)
01:03:19 PM,
Thursday 21 March 2002
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Pretty much the coolest thing ever. Sim's Survivor .
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(4)
09:12:46 AM,
Wednesday 20 March 2002
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So, I had never seen Patriot Games before and it was real cool to Harrison Ford run down Maryland Ave and the Academy guards save him by shooting some guy right in front of our former living room window. Go 8 Maryland Ave! And Annapolis did look gorgeous, as always. But, wow, what a bad movie.
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(7)
02:23:29 PM,
Tuesday 19 March 2002
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We saw In the Bedroom yesterday. Like Monster's Ball, this is an extremely well done movie that I can tell you almost nothing about without giving away major plot. Older Maine couple has college-bound son who falls in love with local woman in middle of messy divorce. Also like Monster's Ball, it was a pretty difficult movie emotionally. Both are deserving Oscar nominees.
So, to ease up on the intensity, we watched Sugar and Spice last night. Yay for cheesy teen movies! And I also received in the mail my very own copy of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men. With both Moore's book and Spong's book, I'm pretty much in guru heaven. Oh, and of course it is Spring Break, thus fueling all this having a good time stuff.
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08:22:30 AM,
Tuesday 19 March 2002
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Our campus stream restoration group got a nice write-up in the Athens Banner-Herald. Sue, Laura, and Zack are the people I went to the Urban Stream Restoration conference with at NCSU back in the fall.
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(3)
12:31:08 PM,
Monday 18 March 2002
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Those of you interested in photography, or just know good art when you see it, should check out the World Press Photo Awards. I was particularly struck by the Body of a Globilization Protester. What an amazing picture of an awful thing. If they're just bored rich kids who're not going to change anything, why are people dying? There's also a great aquatic entomology picture.
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08:13:12 AM,
Monday 18 March 2002
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So, contrary to weather.com's prediction, it did not rain in Atlanta yesterday. And according to the gaging station on Peachtree Creek, I've had pretty steady flow for the past couple days. So it's off to Decature we go.
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(4)
07:47:05 AM,
Sunday 17 March 2002
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Remi and I saw Monster's Ball today. It is a very very good movie, extremely well thought out, written and acted. I, however, have a had a rather emotionally draining past year or so and was not really up to having my emotions run through the wringer by a movie. If you are, by all means see it, particularly if, for some reason, you think the death penalty is a good idea.
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05:35:41 PM,
Saturday 16 March 2002
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A good reason for me to fear being a TA. Weblog of a UGA undergrad
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(7)
08:04:35 AM,
Saturday 16 March 2002
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Menelaus' Palace has been found.
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(1)
06:00:19 PM,
Friday 15 March 2002
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It's finally happening...The Mini will soon be available in the US! (apologies for the fairly annoying animation)
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11:20:14 AM,
Friday 15 March 2002
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Formalin causes cancer. But there may be no way to do what I want to do without preserving my bugs in formalin (ethanol makes them shrink). yuck.
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(6)
08:36:12 AM,
Friday 15 March 2002
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In preparation for the release of the sequel on March 22nd, we watched Blade last night. Stupid pseudo-scientific explanation of vampirism aside, Buffy should definitely investigate the possibility of vampire explodeee!
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(10)
12:23:01 PM,
Thursday 14 March 2002
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"Undercut bank habitat is a refuge for many aquatic insects and is also used by aquatic mammals such as muskrat and platypus."
I wanna find a platypus in my stream.
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(4)
03:58:43 PM,
Wednesday 13 March 2002
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I don't know why I've never seen this before. NoBoJo uncovers Bob Jones U.
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(9)
02:43:19 PM,
Tuesday 12 March 2002
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I can't really avoid the fact that I like math more than most other things. But I'm determined that I'm not going to be an engineer, not even an ecological engineer, not even if lots of people I know transfer into the new ecological engineering program.
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(5)
02:27:38 PM,
Tuesday 12 March 2002
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Pork Rinds are an acceptable side dish of the Atkin's Diet.
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(3)
03:25:38 PM,
Monday 11 March 2002
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My new favorite journal is Combustion, Explosion, and Shock Waves. Now I just have to find a way to use it.
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(2)
10:42:46 AM,
Monday 11 March 2002
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In honor of 6 months since the terrorist attack I would like to point out that the Office of Homeland Security 1) is redundant and 2) has a really stupid name.
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(1)
08:09:27 AM,
Monday 11 March 2002
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The color of the universe has been revised.
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(3)
10:47:38 AM,
Friday 8 March 2002
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I have sites! By Monday I will have a thesis proposal. By the end of March I will have a thesis committee. Things are looking up.
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(5)
08:44:28 AM,
Tuesday 5 March 2002
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"Those who oppose abortion on what they descibe as moral grounds see it as symbolic of the removal of punishment from sexuality. When effective and safe birth control, in the form of the pill, was introduced in the middle of the twentieth century and family planning became a genuine possibility, those changes were also resisted by these same elements of society, and on the same basis. The great unstated fear was that sex and punishment were being separated."
Bishop John Shelby Spong (retired)
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(3)
06:55:38 PM,
Saturday 2 March 2002
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Prepare to be dazzled: Ms. Carlos has a blog.
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(2)
06:32:35 PM,
Saturday 2 March 2002
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I watched The Skulls last night. I really need to stop feeding my obsession with the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
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(8)
11:32:28 AM,
Friday 1 March 2002
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The Shadow Government I've read Alas, Babylon. Does anybody really belive that in the event of a nuclear attack our main concern is going to be the shortage of G-14 and G-15 level civil servants and lower-level appointees?
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(18)
09:07:09 AM,
Friday 1 March 2002
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Amelie is opening here tomorrow. It's about time.
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(8)
12:07:23 PM,
Thursday 28 February 2002
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So it seems like I have carpal tunnel in my right hand and wrist. I got one of the compression glove thingees and I'm trying not to type. blaah.
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(5)
06:10:24 PM,
Wednesday 27 February 2002
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I am more convinced than ever that tests and grades, even in grad school, make students bitter, frustrated, and desperate, while still managing to signify nothing whatsoever. And yet they're still the basis for the vast majority of educational systems. If the powers that be tell students nothing matters but what one particular piece of paper says, should they be surprised when students go to any means necessary to make that piece of paper say the right thing, at the expense of everything else? "Seminar" classes, even as cheesy as the ones I have, at least allow students to actually learn things.
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11:09:25 AM,
Tuesday 26 February 2002
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