went to the met and saw the current contemporary photo exhibition which was noted as having the most laughably pretentious captions ever. then saw the "SUV of sarcophagi" and a necklace decorated with male bodily fluid in a fashion exhibit. this necklace by the same guy, simon costin, is pretty badass:
i also managed to catch both superbad and the simpsons movie. superbad was pretty good, accurately captured high school yearnings, good acting. the simpsons movie was boring and took forever to end. and i like the simpsons.
my profs took this weekend to kindly dump a ton of homework on me. i had like 150 pages of criminal procedure to read and outline and 100 pages of estate planning, but i didn't get around to outlining either.
instead, when i finally got a moment that didn't involve reading about search warrants, i sneaked in some chapters of bill bryson's "a short history of nearly everything," which is an engaging science for idiots. he spends as much time talking about the personalities of scientists as their work, which is why it probably appeals to the layman to the extent it does (it's a popular book). apparently newton was a total scatterbrained nut who, at times upon waking, would sit on his bed for hours because he had so many thoughts rushing through his mind that he couldn't stand. and henry cavendish couldn't look anyone in the eye and when approached by a fan one day, he ran away screaming. and some of these scientists were such vengeful little freaks that this book reads at times like "dynasty." according to the book, the guy who invented the term "dinosaur," richard owen, was a horrible, spiteful person who took credit for other people's discoveries. among his many amusingly vicious personal attacks, when a poor doctor, gideon mantell, who had discovered an early dinosaur was crippled by a carriage, owen took this opportunity, now that the doctor was nearly permanently bedridden, to claim that he himself had made that discovery. owen then completely slandered and discredited the doctor, and when the doctor took his own life due to his pain and emotional trauma, owen got a hold of the doctor's twisted broken spine and kept it on his desk. meeow!
and the doctor who studied "shaking palsy" (now "Parkinson's disease"), james parkinson, originally was a deranged socialist who skirted a death sentence due to an assassination conspiracy involving king george III, and has the odd distinction as being perhaps the only person in the history of the world to win a natural history museum in a raffle.
some people have all the luck.