Canada Day 2005

I celebrated Canada Day by submitted another grant proposal. This one, as usual, is to the National Science Foundation. It's called a research initiation grant, and it's worth US$147,500 if I get it. But it's getting harder and harder to get grants from the NSF, because their budget hasn't been increased very much under the Bush administration in the last couple of years.

Also played hooky part of the day to watch War of the Worlds. Genuinely scary. The Martian war machines are true to the novel's original description and their enormous size really comes across (See this one on the big screen if you can; it won't be the same on a video screen). And there are some nice nods to George Pal's classic 1950s movie, too (but not, sadly, the memorable "heat ray" sound).