Remember the days of free previews of movies? I've seen Mission to Mars, High Fidelity, Ghost World, and Amelie for free. Well yesterday I also had a free pass to see the Core. In it, the core of the earth apparently stops spinning, with disastrous consequences. The solution? Why set off a nuclear device in the core, of course! So a small crew of patriotic geologists pilot a submersible of some sort to the core. I can't even begin to tell you what's wrong with this movie. It seems to be as fun and rediculous as Mission to Mars.

However, the bad news is that I didn't get to see the movie. I had a TEM session until six, and the movies started at seven. I tried to make it on time, but it was raining real hard and I got soaked. I just wanted to go home and change, so that's what I did. I hate to see free movie passes go to waste, but there's nothing I could do. At least I got some homework done.

Here is an example of why it is good to help people altruistically.

Last week I received a random phone call. A Mr. David White from an unknown pharmaceutical company on the east coast wanted some information about the Java program I wrote last summer. Specifically, he wanted to know the reference for the formula I used for triclinic unit cells. I told him that the equations I used were not specific to crystal system and that they were general matrix equations. However, the book I used was a crystallography text, which is not readily accessible to a run-of-the-mill pharmaceutical technician. So he asked if I could fax him the pages out of the book with the relevant equations. I agreed. I asked him a few more questions about how my program was working out for him and whether or not he had any problems with it. Early the next day, I got the materials together and faxed him the information. It felt nice to help him out, and to know that something I had worked on for over a month was actually beneficial to people.

Then this week I received a strange package in the mail, from an address I didn't recognize. Inside the package were a big plastic mug, a pen, a squishy mini football, and a leatherman, all with the strange moniker "aaiPharma". The accompanying letter was from David White, thanking me for my help and offering me these "tokens of appreciation". How nice. It seems my generosity paid off.

That's how society is supposed to work.

My Astrobiology poster is now online!

I guess I just lost the blog I wrote, which is the same kind of shit I put up with this weekend. I'll just give the high points.
* I had to make a poster this weekend
* I drank six beers on Saturday night
* I threw up
* I had a fever
* My girlfriend took care of me (and I love her for that!)
* I still had to finish the poster
* The program (Adobe Illustrator) kept fucking up on me, making me lose information
* I've concluded that I can't binge drink anymore because I actually get sick the next day (last time I got the flu)
* I've had 2 good legal drinking years, and 5 illegal ones.

My LPSC abstract is now on the web. It's scheduled for 8:30 in the morning on the last day of the conference. Hopefully I can work it out so I don't have to go for the entire week. I'd like to spend some of my Spring Break doing what I want to do!