During a Quantum Mechanics homework extravaganza, some of my Physics friends and I found ourselves talking about our disappointment with our latest sushi excursion. Naturally this made us quite hungry and deciding quickly that seafood was tastier than iterated integrals by parts, we grabbed our stuff and headed for yet another raw-fish purveying establishment, Sushi Nobu. It was flat-out magnificent. The service was unmatched, the variety fantastic and the freshness supreme. One had but to utter the name of any among a myriad of items and the succulent creation would appear in seconds. And so beautiful was each dish that each time one of the chefs handed you one of his glistening, colorful formulations of cuisine, the eyes were sure to feast as much as the stomach. I will be sure to return.

If you have any interest in thematic fungi, I highly recommend clicking on the following image:

My time has recently been spent pretty solely on homework. In anticipation that I may have freetime this weekend (Martin Luther King day extends it), Amazon has now provided me with the last book in Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, the first in Steven Erickson's recent epic, and the start of Hayao Miyazaki's manga creation. I might just end up sleeping, playing racquetball and watching football though. It's hard to say at this point.

I really should get out my new digital camera and take some pictures of something. Perhaps early next week. Speaking of early next week, I've been cunningly lured into a talk on information theory by the tantalizing promise of pizza.

Today's villain is possibly the most famous non-Star -Wars robot of all time: HAL9000.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most well-known science fiction novels ever written and Stanley Kubrick's brilliant film adaptation ensures that the story of HAL9000 will not soon be forgotten. Two astronauts (and a sleeping crew) are aboard a spaceship headed for Jupiter, millions of miles from any other living being. Their only companion is HAL, the ship's computer. Along with Kubrick's depiction of HAL's sensors as malevolent and omniscient red eyes, its chilling monotone conveys the uncaring, systematic nature that makes the threat and tension all the more pronounced. When the men attempt to disconnect the him due to irregularities (caused by Earth's insistence that HAL lie to the crew about the mission), this threat becomes real and HAL tricks one to his vacuum-induced doom then sucks the rest of the sleeping crew into the black void of space as well, leaving only David Bowman alive. Bowman destorys HAL in an extremely emotional death scene wherein the computer acts more human than many of the movie's characters.