Blog Archives: May, 2007
One opinion on math lectures
I hope my students don’t think this about my lectures.
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30 years of Star Wars
This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars: Episode 4: A New Hope (although at the time just called Star Wars). I watched the movie again on Friday night to celebrate. But this comic gives an excellent way to offer congratulations to the Star Wars fan community.
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Homer Simpson’s jobs
Tonight will be the 400th episode of The Simpsons, one of the few remaining shows on television worth watching, in light of my previous post. I came across the video below which shows almost all of the 112 jobs that Homer Simpson has had to date.
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Gilmore Girls at an end
Tuesday night my housemates and I went to a friend’s house in Elmira to watch the series finale of Gilmore Girls. I only started watching Gilmore Girls a couple of years ago, but when I saw a random clip here and there many years ago I knew that it was a good show. It’s got characters that are easy to care about and believable. It’s not outlandish — well, except for the craziness that is Stars Hollow. And it’s witty and amusing; I love the fast-paced dialogue, apparently some 40% more dialog than an average show.
Before driving out to Elmira to watch the finale, it seemed like the fates might be against us. Around 7pm a thunderstorm rolled in, more fierce than any so far this year. But it eventually calmed down. Before watching the finale, we watched the original pilot episode to remind ourselves of how it all started. And there was lots of junk food, as the (skinny) main characters eating ridiculous amounts of junk food is a common theme on the show. Let me tell you, after eating donuts, pop tarts, Twizzlers, Puffs, marshmallows, and cookies, I can’t imagine they actually eat it on the set, because I could barely eat all that.
But the finale was great. When they were filming it, they didn’t know at the time whether it would be the series finale or whether they’d be coming back for another season. But it was a perfect sendoff. So many shows try to make the finale over the top — a double wedding combined with a miraculous coma awakening topped with reconciliation with a long lost child. But this was just a sweet episode. All the characters we grew to love got their moment, but not more. The story of these characters didn’t end, we just don’t get to see the next chapter. Maybe it’s nicer that way.
And fate, in the end, was in our favour. When we got back from Elmira, we discovered people from our apartment building waiting outside in the rain while firefighters examined the building. The fire alarm went off — no fire — ten minutes before the show would have ended. Can you imagine having to miss the last ten minutes of the last episode ever of a show because of a fire alarm?
This leaves of course a void on television. And combined with the recent announcement that another of my favourite shows, Veronica Mars, has not been renewed, there is little left on TV that interests me besides The Simpsons and South Park. Why must they cancel quality shows like Veronica Mars in favour of some stupid quiz game comparing intelligence with a fifth grader, or yet another reality show where idiots get voted off the island or don’t make the cut or get fired?
At least there are DVDs.
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Swim across
Swim across the Atlantic Ocean This is so neat that I have to share it. I found this on the blog of one of my former students. Google Maps will now give you directions from locations in North America to destinations in Europe. So I’ve done a set of directions between two places I’ve lived, from Windsor, Ontario to Oxford, England. You might wondering about that long part in the middle. It’s step 24 in their directions, as you can see in the image at left.
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Once Upon a Time
I played hooky today to join my parents in Montreal to visit the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit at the Musée des Beaux Arts. I’ve longed enjoyed Disney films. Although my favourites are obviously ones from my youth — Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame — the older films, the ones created by Walt Disney which were the focus of the exhibit, still hold a certain allure, especially Fantasia and Peter Pan. The exhibit discussed the history of Disney animation, early creations such as Mickey Mouse, and then all of feature films created under Walt Disney’s leadership. The exhibit connected the art from the movies with their influences, be it 19th romantic paintings, German black-and-white films, or hand-illustrated fairy tales. I also learned about a short film I’d never heard of before. Apparently in the 1940s Disney and Salvadore Dali discussed the creation of a short animated film based on Dali’s work, but it was not completed at the time. Only in 2003 did Walt’s nephew Roy Disney complete the short film Destino. And there’s free wireless service on the train right now, so this entry comes directly from on board a Via rail train.
