I saw the new Harry Potter movie this past weekend. I thought it was great, although it did leave me with an interesting thought in my head. I walked out of the theater felling sorry for the actors in the movie. I realized as I was walking out, that each and everyone of them has, for the most part, missed out on the joy that has been the Harry Potter series. Having watched the "making of" special that they've been running on A&E, I realized how little of the movie is real. I mean it must ruin any suspension of disbelief for the actors were they to ever watch it. They must be like, "Hey you see that scene there...that was really just me flapping my arms in front of a green screen." Nothing too profound there, it just never dawned on me before.

Anyway, I've been looking into grad school lately, and I was horrified to look at the tuition that schools have the balls to ask for these days. I want to learn as much as the next guy, but the field I want to pursue is not some cash cow in the making like medicine or law. I am into science, and the return on investment that follows a graduate degree in science is often times more related to opening doors to NEW jobs, and not so much opening doors to HIGHER PAYING jobs. That's life I guess.

If you were to place a flying video camera above my head, and you were to continuously shoot footage as the camera slowly climbed higher and higher into the sky, you'd notice that I get smaller and smaller, and eventually, I'd be too small to be seen by any person who chooses to watch the video. Once the camera got far enough away from me, you'd actually begin to see the round outline of the Earth set in stark contrast to the immense blackness of space surrounding it on all sides. As the camera continued to move away, eventually, even the earth would be too small to see. As the camera continued to move away, eventually our sun would be nothing more than just another pin-point of light in a massive, fuzzy orgy of celestial bodies. Moving away, moving away, and now our entire galaxy even appears to be nothing more than a pin-point of light, for the most part, eerily similar to the countless others that occupy the surrounding space. The physical improbability of building a camera this robust is obvious. So, what's the point? I'd like to hear what all of you think this means.