While at a Harvard recruitment weekend, I was at a party at Sh--'s house. Much to my astonishment, this was the same Sh-- who had dated R-- in high school, who is now girlfriend to P--, my room mate from first year, and who is my partner in undergraduate grime here. Notably, while doing undergraduate work here, Sh- was working for this man, who incidentally, is also working on some of the same things as my PI. Incidentally, however, this man, while doing his postdoctoral research with this man, also knew this man (a previous professor of mine), along with her and her (who, incidentally, is sister to him, working at the same institute directed by her, who was once, in the not too far past, here) working in the same lab. Notably, this man (who is here, and is, at least in part, very interested in his work and his work. The latter, of course, having worked for him -- both of whom were my organic chemistry professors -- while they were both here) just missed this man while he was doing a postdoc for him. Surprisingly, however, I recently found out that this man was also good friends with her (whose lab is one floor above the one I work in) while she was working for him back in the days when he was working here. Currently, however, he is here, an institution of which she is president (who, before her presidency, has a great story of a race with him for one of the early groundbreaking methylation papers. Incidentally, he ended up publishing here while she published here -- it's hard to feel sorry for either of them). His work is intricately tied with theirs...and, as you may have picked up on the trend, he (a professor of mine last year) is friends with him (another old professor), at least to the extent that they taught a revised version of the class I took last year from just him alone. Anyhow, also while this man was post-doc-ing here, this man was working for him, who, incidentally, recently won this prize, perhaps just a bit before (or perhaps even at the same time as) he worked for him. Notably, his graduate student is currently at the same institution as him.

The moral? Well, not so much a moral, I guess -- more a six degrees of separation to Gerald Fink, I guess. Anyhow, happy Saturday night!

Just a heads up for everyone at the U of C who may be interested... The Bull Moose Society and the Environmental Law Society at the Law School are bringing in a friend of mine, Jonathan Carter, to speak on Monday. Mr. Carter will be speaking on the 2004 Elections and the Environment. He is certainly one of the most knowledgeable people I know on the topics of politics and the environment having spearheaded a couple referendum campaigns to limit clearcutting in Maine. He was also the 2002 Green candidate for Governor in Maine, which netted him 10% of the vote that year.

Dissenting voices are welcomed and encouraged. The talk will be on Monday, April 5, 12:15pm in Law School Room IV. Free lunch will be served, as well.

[I really really really hate it when Movable Type loses my posts because my browser registers "backspace" as "go back" and when I come back forward all of the text I've entered is gone. If anybody knows how to stop this from ever happening (short of tearing out my backspace key, which is tempting) let me know.]

Thomas at That's News to Me seems all-too-pleased with the release of the Star Wars DVDs. I mean, I'm pleased too, but as Steve Dunn and I have previously noted, the DVDs are problematic because they represent the false Special Edition of the movie, rather than Original Trilogy.

For me, the sticking point is the question of whether Han Solo Shot First (in the Cantina), for much more on which you can see the Greedo-assassination page. Anyway, I have little to add to these previous posts except to note this message board where you can flame about the subject, and this online petition you can sign.

The University of Chicago's newest publication has launched-- The Chicago Quill.

As yet, it contains no articles by yours truly, though hopefully that will change soon. Here's a brief introductory note by the editors, and another note by Phoebe Maltz