Submitted a workshop paper, worked on preparing a job talk a bit. Thesis writing and hacking continues.
Saw a couple of movies.
Sita Sings the Blues: A playful, humorous and extremely stylish retelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana with the music (late 20s/early 30s jazz) of Annette Hanshaw. Also argumentative shadow puppets trying to remember the plot, monkeys that haven't thoroughly figured out the concept of dancing but have a go at it anyway, the cutest baddies you've ever seen during intermission, a fantastic soundtrack, and a touching personal story of love and loss in wobbly Dr.-Katz-esque angst-o-vision. Go see it right now. Sadly it does not appear to be playing at a real theater in pittsburgh again any time soon, but this is what we have the internet for.
_tove just told me about the showing last night at the Harris at the last minute, where Nina Paley herself had shown up as well to do a Q&A thing after the showing. She is pretty awesome - one of those total free culture/open source/creative commons hippies in a way that just warms my heart. (10/10)The Fisher King: A jerk-ass radio talk show host (Jeff Bridges) tries to make amends for a tragedy that he was indirectly ambiguously responsible for by befriending the homeless crazy dude (Robin Williams, playing himself, as always) who was the victim of it. The quantity of weirdness was very Gilliam, but the style of it (with some exceptions, e.g. the visual of the Red Knight that Robin Williams's character hallucinates) seemed atypical for him in my mind. It had its good moments, but also some really profoundly uncomfortable ones. (7/10)