The Simpsons

I recently finished watching the first ten seasons of The Simpsons on Disney+. My goal starting out was twenty seasons, but I'm not going to make it. The tenth season was hard enough to slog through (except there was one joke in the second-to-last episode of the tenth season that almost literally had me rolling on the floor).  And I have already seen most if not all of my favorite episodes such as "Last Exit to Springfield," "Duffless," and "Deep Space Homer."

One thing I didn't like was that Disney+ showed the episodes widescreen when they were originally 4:3. That sometimes cut off important parts of the visuals (such as in "Duffless.") See details here.

Also, the third season episode, "Stark Raving Dad" isn't on Disney+, perhaps because of its Michael Jackson connection (Jackson voiced a character who things he's Michael Jackson). Apparently you have to buy the complete third season on DVD to see it these day.

I watched normally two episodes a day. Sometimes on the weekend I'd watch more. 

Watching the series so fast, you can almost feel the quality degrading as the years pass. The early seasons (after the short season one) seemed to be the best, and it went downhill from there but with occasional brilliant episodes. 

I also watched the seventeenth season episode "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" as it was, I believe, the last truly brilliant episode. 

I watched The Simpsons in first run for thirty years. But then I gave up on it. I see it still is running but I'm not watching (I gave up on Family Guy, too).

Now I'm going to have to find something new to watch. Not sure what. Maybe catch up on The Expanse. 

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

The Pac-12 and Who I Hate

College football starts soon. And I am, of course, rooting for the University of Washington Huskies (Go Dawgs!) The Huskies play in the Pac-12 conference and there are some rivalries and teams I outright hate in that conference.

For football, the Pac-12 is divided into two divisions each with six teams. They are the Pac-12 North and the Pac-12 South. The winner of each division plays in the Pac-12 Conference Championship game.

First, I loath the Oregon Nike Ducks (Pac-12 North). They are my most-hated team. Mostly because they usually beat the Huskies. But also going back to when the Huskies had some minor recruiting violations, Oregon led the way for the Pac-12 to discipline the program even when the NCAA said there was no need for that. I will root against Oregon no matter who they are playing. Even the Cougs.

In second place, is the Washington State University Cougars (Pac-12 North). They are my second most-hated team and a cross-state rival. We beat the Cougars a lot, but of course, it's a cross-state rivalry. I'm required to hate them.

In third place is USC Trojans (Pac-12 South). They are just so arrogant. Even when they lose.

In fourth place is the Stanford Cardinal (it's a color and Pac-12 North). For some reason, we have trouble beating them.

In fifth place is the Utah Utes (Pac-12 South). They are a tough team to beat.

Finally, in sixth place is the University of Arizona Wildcats (Pac-12 South). They are (usually) a tough team to beat, especially when they play at home. Predictions are they won't be very good this year.

And the rest of the teams, including Pac-12 North teams Oregon State and California and Pac-12 South Teams Colorado, Arizona State, and UCLA I don't have much feelings toward. Except, of course, I always want to beat them when the Huskies play them.

Trees in 140 Characters

 I was looking for ideas to blog about and I found this random blog idea generator. It first wanted me to enter a noun so I entered "tree." Don't ask why. Five ideas came up. I didn't really like most of them (and they all had "tree" in them someplace). But one caught my eye:

"Tree explained in 140 characters."

I have a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources. I probably know more about trees than the average Joe (although my specific area of study was turning trees into paper). And, as you probably know, 140 characters was what Twitter used to allow (now it's 280).

I had to think about what do trees do? How do they do it? What is the net result?

Here's what I came up with:

Trees grow up, turning air into sugar, sugar into structure, structure into height. They can be huge or merely tall. They make oxygen for us 

The last period is missing because that's the 141st character.

Trees take air, that is, carbon dioxide, plus water and turn it into glucose, a sugar. Then in a process I don't understand (never learned) they take glucose and turn it into cellulose which then becomes the structure of the tree. Some trees are tall and some hare huge (such as the California Redwoods and Sequoias). 

So what do you think of my 140-character description of trees? Let me know in the comments below.

Thirty Days!

It's thirty days until the University of Washington Huskies start their 2021 season. I'm going to be there as they take on an FCS team, the Montana Grizzlies.

This year is a bit of a mystery going in. Coach Jimmy Lake's record is 3-1 from last year's COVID-shortened season. So who knows how he'll handle a full season?

I've seen predictions that the Huskies will go 14-0 this season. I've seen predictions they'll be in second place in the Pac-12 North behind the despised (by me and all right-thinking people) Oregon Nike Ducks. So I don't know. I'm pretty confident they'll win their first game on September 4th against Montana. But I'm worried about their second game which is at Michigan. The Huskies historically don't do well on big, out-of-conference, nationally-broadcast away games. But maybe they will be better this year.

The recruiting buzz is positive as the Huskies apparently had some good players commit to the team. I don't know if that will manifest itself this year or later.

A while back I was watching a Huskies game from 2016. That was the year they ended up at #4 in the nation and were 12-2 overall (having lost to Alabama in the CFP). And the team oozed talent, from John Ross to Jake Browning, Myles Gaskin, and Tyler Rapp. Maybe that magic can happen again this year. We'll have to see.

That first game in thirty days is on September 4th at 5:00 PM PDT. It will be on the Pac-12 Network (which I get on my Dish satellite television service). I'll be in the stands yelling, "Go Dawgs!"