A friend linked this on FB. I thought you might enjoy it:

MineCraft Universe Music Video

I just want to thank everyone for their awesome birthday wishes and some really wicked presents! Thank you all!

The Ghost Writer - 9
This limited release gem starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, and Tom Wilkinson, among others, is not to be missed. A ghost writer who writes autobiographies is hired to take on a former Prime Minister's memoirs. In the midst of it he gets deeply caught up in major political intrigue. Why is it a gem then? For one, it was directed by Roman Polanski (Frantic, Tess, The Pianist), and it is a true mystery thriller. Emphasis on the mystery. It's so rare to find an actual mystery movie where the clues are fed to you one bit at a time, and they don't all fit together at once. So many films dump the answer to the mystery upon you in one large avalanche, but this movie enthralls you with pieces the entire way without making you feel cheated or abused. It is low on tension but high on suspense, which is a very difficult line to tread, but it manages with flying colors. See it! Why are you still reading? Just because there's more text below this? Fine. Read that, and then go see it. I'll wait here.

As a side note, I've had extremely good success with nearly every movie that is introduced as a limited release. Kissing Jessica Stein, Ghost Town, and (I think?) Death At A Funeral (the real one, dammit) are all fantastic examples of this. They all are usually indie films and rarely disappoint...

Since I am always yacking on about the huge number of movies I know and love, I'm going to start splitting out my reviews of said movies from the theatres. Rating system is 0-10, with 10 being the best movie ever. So let's get caught up for this year, shall we?

( Sherlock Holmes - 8.5 )

( Legion - 3 )

( Daybreakers - 6.5 )

( Alice in Wonderland - 7.5 )

( The Book of Eli - 9 )

( The Wolfman - 4 )

I have used all of the gift cards I have received (thank you everyone!) to buy my new netbook, a blue Samsung N120. If I haven't yet received your gift card, have no fear, I shall need accessories as well soon.

This is what I bought. I have dubbed him 'Stitch' and his official computer name is EXP626. Hehe.

I love him dearly and I'm finishing up cramming every game I can manage that will work for his class of computer onto his hard drive. The only one that refuses to work to the point of annoyance is Neverwinter Nights. I am frustrated with that bit, to be sure...

The accessories I plan to get include a bluetooth mouse and either a USB or bluetooth travel gamepad (think SNES size controller).

In all other news, work sucks, I'm always tired, and really, REALLY ready to get these goddamned splints out of my nose.

TTFN

I swear this must feel like a broken nose does. But I get ahead of myself.

Surgery went like clockwork. Arrived there right on time, signed all of the "I won't sue you" papers, and then went into the back while Jamie waited outside in the very nicely furnished waiting room.

Got to put on one of those horrible patient gowns and the hair thingy, and then they took all my vitals, gave me a local lidocaine shot for my IV, and then had the Anesthesiologist talk to me. After that, they told me they were going to give me diprivan (a drug my mom the ICU nurse swears by for knocking people out) and said they were going to start me on some drugs to get me relaxed. They wheeled me down the hall as I was telling them what I do for a living, and next thing I know, surgery is over and I'm awake again. Great stuff, that diprivan.

Of course, I had just had full anesthesia, my septum chopped up and relocated, my nasal concha bones ground down (I think that's right), and three sinuses puffed up, not to mention being intubated for the procedure. Oh, and they stick to giant flattish tampons deep up your nose to staunch bleeding.

In short, I felt like absolute shit. So after much vicodin (remember, drugs don't affect me well, so instead of happy, i just get less grumpy), and a ton of pudding and ice cream, I made it through yesterday just fine. Changed the gauze on my nose once an hour to catch all the dripping, which has mostly abated by now, especially since I got to pull those things out of my nose when I got up this morning.

So that's my experience so far. Still can't move around too fast or look down very well (I have to pee sitting down like a girl, dammit, or god knows what I would hit), but my recovery seems to be pretty textbook so far. I just hope I'm feeling well enough to work Monday, although lord knows I will be staying in my office and moving like a grandpa.

Thanks for all the support y'all, it means a lot to me :)

PS. Thanks to Jibrelle for letting me borrow Peter Gabriel Videos.

Well, I go in for surgery early tomorrow morning. I'll try and post an update when I am coherent enough to. I despise being put under, as it always screws with me and I don't respond well to anesthesia at all.

More later...

Yesterday traffic and a lack of parking made me miss about 30 minutes on adsorption and molecular sieves (styles of NGL recovery).

This turned out to not be so much of an issue, since adsorption is exactly how coalbed methane works, which I know a lot about. And the awesome thing about molecular sieves is they are zeolites. I know geognome geeks out about zeolites as much as I do (give us a break, we dig rocks). Zeolites are special naturally occurring aluminosilicates that are structured in such a way that they literally sieve and filter fluids at a molecular level. How cool is that?

All I can say is, geology rocks!

PS. Today's topic is fractionation. I'm sure Mr. Cifarelli could teach me a thing or two about it...

Do you know why water expands when it freezes? Do you know at what temperature water freezes? Are you sure?

I'm curious to know how many people actually already knew the answer behind the cut.

( Find out how weird water really is... )