one degree of Kevin Spacey

Am in Hamilton at a conference. (Yes, I know - I get to go to all the most exotic ones!) The conference is pretty informal, but it's all people from the universities in the area who study attention and performance. So pretty interesting. It's only a two-dayer, but my supervisor put us up in the dorms on campus. It is kind of fun, as I never actually lived in a dorm room in undergrad. It smells exactly like camp rooms did. I have to say, living in a one-bedroom basement suite with Stephie was cozy, but I never would have survived sharing a three-meter-wide room with some random roommate for an entire school year.

Anyway, the most interesting part of the whole experience (sorry, attention researchers) was watching the filming of the movie Casino Jack. We first realised something was going on when some guy brandishing an umbrella started yelling at all the passing academics, rolling his hands above his head and yelling, "Quiet! Rolling! QUIET! ROLLING!!!" You could practically see the question marks above the heads of the venerable academics. ("Rolling? What?") But they had a big crane with a camera on it pointing at a balcony just above our heads.

Turned out the balcony in question was attached to the grad lounge, so there was nothing for it but to go have lunch there. Alex, the post-doc, Asma, my labmate, and I managed to end up seated right in front of the window to the balcony. We were gazing right over the directors' chairs (who knew they actually use chairs like that?!) and into the monitor showing what was being filmed. We watched Kevin Spacey on the monitor screw something up and burst out laughing, and just as I said, "I wonder if we'll actually see him?" he came wandering over to our section of the window. Neat! We walked past the equipment trucks on the way back - so many cables and bits of equipment, and like 50 shades of what I assume were filters for the lights. To anyone in the film industry: I will happily give you a tour of my lab if you show me what all that interesting equipment actually does!

Oooh, speaking of our lab, my supervisor has managed to secure the funds to build a brand new one. And in the meantime, they are moving us out of our basement dungeon (accessed by walking THROUGH the janitor's closet) and into a new space with WINDOWS! I am very, very pleased with this turn of events.