This week: peeling
My last blog entry, from nearly a week ago, reports on my trip to Santa Cruz. I’ll start this entry by following up on that one. Those of you bitter that I am enjoying sunny California while you find yourselves in rainy Waterloo can take solace in the fact that my sunburn has started to peel.
This entry will be a bit of a log of what I’ve been up to lately. I’m working on a think-piece blog entry which I’ll have posted in the next day or two.
Marge Simpson waving Canadian flag I feel obliged to recognize the genius of The Simpsons. Tonight’s episode (“The Bart of War”) has the Springfield mob eschewing mindless violence and singing the “sweet, soothing” hymn that is the national anthem of Canada, then joining hands to form the outline of a maple leaf. And through this, Bart and Milhouse come to learn that “war is not the answer, except to all of America’s problems.” It really doesn’t get much better than this.
On the topic of TV, this past Wednesday was the series finale of Dawson’s Creek. Although some readers may be disappointed to know that I’m a Dawson’s fan, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I have enjoyed the show. The finale was sad, but dealt with the series’ main theme – friendship and love – poignantly and with respect for the viewer. Although a show set in high school, I felt that it connected to me in university. And even though I’m a D/Jer, I’m okay with Joey ending up with Pacey. That’s all the fictional teen melodrama writing you’ll have from me for a while. No promises about the non-fictional teen melodrama, though.
Pinnacles So while much of my life here in California sadly revolves around watching TV, I have been able to make it outdoors every once in a while. Yesterday, we went hiking at Pinnacles National Monument, where “we” is defined as 12 interns from Sun Labs. I learned that hiking with 12 people is less than optimal, especially when you’re going on a 13 kilometre hike and most are used to driving to “nature”, walking on a boardwalk for 100m, and then getting back in their air conditioned SUV. Okay, perhaps I’m being a little mean – everyone made it through the hike with relatively minimal complaining. Still, I’m anti-social when it comes to nature. Spending time in the great outdoors can be an almost-spiritual event for me, one that I find I can’t enjoy when I’m with other people.
As for today, today I made muffins. Boo-yeah!
Comment by Lino
“Boo-yeah”???
Comment by Patrick
Yeah Lino’s right doug its BOO-YA.
ANyway I loved the simpsons. It was better than the toronto episode I thought.
Also you need to start hiking with better people. I’m sure you’d be less anti-social about it if you went with like minded anti-SUV people.
Care to join me for a few of the trails through the highlands if I ever make it to the UK next year?
Cheers,
P
Comment by Matt D
I literally leapt (sp?) to my feet when O Canada was sung! A lot of Canadians on staff?
link = unibrow
Frida was excellent
link = film
back-two link = wack media
Check out Bamboozled by Spike Lee. Saw it at a friend’s. The first thing I heard on the radio driving home was an interview with Vanilla Ice. If you’ve seen Bamboozled you can understand how surreal that was.
MD
Comment by Douglas
There are a number of Canadian writers on the show. For more info about the Canadian links to the show, check out Simpsons, eh?.
