After our youthful night show-hopping on Thursday, V and returned home to the ever-welcoming Tara dog around 2am. I managed six hours of sleep before arising and heading off to work. Over the last week or two i've had renewed interest in developing RT_Image, the 3D image display and analysis tool i've been writing over the last three years. This interest has arisen because i casually mentioned the program to my friend Sandip, and he's siezed upon it as a great way to facilitate some clinical PET studies he's had in mind. While i do enjoy software development, the downside of increased usage is an increase in the frequency at which bugs are found, and correspondingly the frequency with which i have to fix them in order to keep my collaborators' work moving forward. I spent more time doing this on Friday, with a brief interlude for our now-weekly Radiation Physics literature review. After a quiet afternoon in my office, i met up with friends Jennifer and Frank and, after returning home briefly to feed the dog, Caltrained up to the city to meet Veronica. We had a typically delectable meal at Chai Yo with Naomi and Raffi, then rendez-voused with Gary at the Metreon for the 10:05pm showing of Marie Antoinette.

I'll give Sofia Coppola all the credit in the world for trying to infuse modern elements and personal reflection into a period piece. I still think the juxtaposition of punk iconography and post-punk music with 18th century French royalty is brilliant. The problem with Marie Antoinette is in the execution. While i love the soundtrack, its usage in the film just does not flow. The sequence moving from Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" to the Cure's "Plainsong" to New Order's "Ceremony" feels like a string of music videos. I can see what mood Coppola was trying to capture, particularly with "Ceremony", but it just doesn't fit. "Plainsong" is especially out of place, draped poorly over scenes of Louis XVI's coronation. I don't condemn Coppola for trying ... i still think the concept has wings ... but she failed, plain and simple. I'm not sure i grasp the message she was trying to deliver with the plot either, depicting Antoinette as an innocent Austrian princess thrust into the protocol and politics of the French court through an arranged marriage to Louis XVI. There's some interesting comments on the insanity of rigidly adhering to procedure, including Antoinette shivering naked while her entourage decides who has the proper rank to assume the honor of dressing her. I don't know much about her, so i can't comment on the liberties Coppola did or did not take with history. But as she's admitted this is less a biopic than a tale of loneliness and isolation, i would've preferred that Coppola didn't go through the motions of including historical events. Such as the death of Louis XV, or particularly the death of Antoinette's mother, which is dispensed with and forgotten in about a minute.

Final verdict: Lots of possibilities. But lacking the cohesiveness of the vastly superior character study Lost in Translation.

Veronica is really into Wolfmother all of the sudden. For some reason this really amuses me. I expect her to get a Zoso tattoo before long. I'm at Veronica's work at the moment, killing time while she finishes up a project. Prior to hopping onto fac13, i finished reading Why Darwin Matters, Michael Shermer's critical analysis of the Intelligent Design movement. It's a quite readable summary of the arguments of Intelligent Design proponents, which fail on basic scientific grounds. I particularly liked Shermer's comparison of the basic ID theory to the famous cartoon in which a scientist requests more detail regarding a colleague's theory. I'm now switching back to reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which i picked up in the Washington D.C. airport on a recent trip. Maybe then i'll delve into the multiple recent films documenting Capote's experiences writing the novel. I'm not quite sure why we needed two versions (last year's Oscar-winning Capote and the recently released Infamous), but then we did get To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar right after Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

V and i decided to remove the carpet in our bedroom this weekend, revealing the hardwood underneath. Of course that decision entailed removing all the furniture from the bedroom, which then raised the question of where it would go. Pondering locations for the computer, we identified the table in the kitchen, but then that means we need to finish painting that area. So one planned step forward has made us back up three or four steps, and i primed the kitchen this morning. Of course removing the carpet in the bedroom means priming the kitchen. Duh!

I picked up the new Splinter Cell: Double Agent for the 360 as soon as EB received it last week. Unfortunately my busy schedule has precluded giving it a preliminary whirl. V has promised me that i will have uninterrupted time to do so once we get home, in gratitude for accompanying her to work. I read an article about the forthcoming Gears of War in the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly that has me jonesing.

To complete a good week, Chelsea did me proud on Wednesday by defeating European rivals Barcelona in the Champions League. A feel-good win all around, with Didier Drogba producing another classy goal to continue his fine form, third string keeper Hilario putting in a memorable performance in relief of the injured Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini, and an absence of the mind games and accusations that have peppered our encounters over the last two years. And just as the pronouncements that high profile Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko is washed up came out, he scored his first home Premiership goal against Portsmouth today in a 2-1 win that takes Chelsea to the top of the table. I've contended all year that Shevchenko has been quite effective in our offense, facilitating attacks but just not getting goals himself. Naturally he does need to score, and i had every reason to think he would eventually. It's a much different case than Mateja Kezman, who was essentially useless in the Chelsea attack and left after one dismal year. The other goal in today's win came from another summer signing, German midfielder Michael Ballack. I'm liking how our team is shaping up, although the goalkeeping crisis is worrisome and as Matthew pointed out, we're one injury in defense from being undermanned there too.