Thermopyle

Current Mood: black and white
Current Music: "Night Prowler" by AC/DC

I forgot to mention that I went to a lecture the other day with Pugwash (that lecture/science & ethics group I've largely ignored because I was busy being funny) and got to speak with a prominent aerospace professor that teaches here part time at Purdue University. Dr. Rusek teaches juniors and seniors, but also works for the DOD, NASA, and the Air Force. He has four degrees, authored 60 publications, and owns 30 patents. I would not be joking to say that this was one of the smartest men I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. I spent an hour and a half absorbing every word that came out of his mouth. It was like he was reading my mind...he talked about how politics and other things hinders the scientific community (with a mind toward space exploration, mind you) and he even supported Bush's Vision For Space Exploration. After discussing world economy, fuel and energy concepts, and other issues, he spent some time discussing chemistry-based aerospace propulsion techniques. I only really understood part of it (we're talking graduate level physics, chemistry, and calculus)...but it still kicked ass.

I saw Sin City tonight with Ashley, Benji, Paul, and Andy despite the fact that it was snowing today. Awesome company to go with an incredible movie. This is perhaps the truest comic book-to-film translation I've ever seen. It was gritty and violent, and at times cheesy, but it wasn't ashamed to embrace it's black-and-white comic book/noir heritage. Plus there was plenty of excellent dialogue. That's the first movie I've actually gone to see in a theatre in quite some time.

Speaking of the Ship of Fools, our very own Matt Dennig placed 5th in the annual Purdue Grand Prix kart racing championship. New pictures from Provstock '05 can be found at our website (including one of me ripping Paul's heart out, Mortal Kombat-style). Lately, there have been a few SoF records broken. Therefore, at practice this Friday, Paul unveiled his Top Secret challenge- changing Three Things (miming three wacky activities, like "minting coins with molten squirrels" or "invading France with an army of bunnies armed with baguettes" in three minutes) to Five Things in three minutes. Benji requested me specifically- I felt like a secret agent on special assignment. Ashley and I managed to convey to Benji all five things with 10 seconds to spare. It was amazing to say the least.

We workshopped a bit afterwards, focusing on character building. Then we adjourned to Ashley's apartment for the end-of-year We Can Sexy! Party. A group of 20 or so nerds in a confined area making bad puns and singing acapella, some quite inebriated made for a very entertaining evening.

Benji: So, would you like to talk about the Halting Problem?
Paul: Well, it's very basic (no "BASIC" puns, please) to understand.
John: I'm getting a "Visual".
Ryan: I give that a C++.

You get the idea. Still, we had a bunch of fun and Andy said that I was really a great comedian, which really made me feel fantastic.

Things to worry about/take care of:
*Final presentation english conference on Wednesday
*Parking pass application for next year
*Finding season tickets for football for next year
*Studying all this week for exams starting May 1st
*Begin cleaning/packing room to go home

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
--Bertrand Russell