A miracle occurred.

The most amazing thing just happened. I just started watching an episode of Futurama that I'd never seen before.

At least, that's what I thought. About ten minutes into it, I realized that it was just an episode that I'd never entirely seen before. I've seen the last five minutes of it a couple of times, but that's all. (This is the episode, by the way.)

I remember being a little freaked out by it, just as I'm freaked out generally by werewolves and the incredible Hulk. I think if I were able to catalog all the nightmares I've ever had and form a subject index, the Hulk would have the most references.

The title of this entry makes me chuckle, because of another Futurama episode. (This one.) Fry and Bender enlist in Earth's military in order to get a discount at the convenience store. Just after signing up, the fellas ask the recruiting officer if they can just quit after using the discount. He replies, "Sure, unless war were declared." Then huge sirens go off all over the place, and Fry and Bender yell, "What's that?" The officer replies, "War were declared."

Bwahahahahahaha!

On a different topic, I've just rediscovered that I really really really really really ought to just sit down and read through the textbook Lie groups, by Duistermaat and Kolk. Several times, I've been trying and trying to figure something out for myself, or figure out the details of something my advisor has told me about, and I've finally cracked open that book and found it all written out.

The detail of the book is somewhat excruciating, and there's an analytical and/or differential equations feel to some of it, but that's just what makes it such a good book. The authors actually worked it all out and wrote it all down.

Plus, Professor Duistermaat was my advisor's advisor, which is really cool. Plus, I exchanged emails with Professor Kolk once, and he seemed very friendly.

Plus, in the forward of the book, after thanking various mathematicians for their assistance, input, etc. Professor Kolk thanks his cardiologist for his contribution in helping the book get published.

How cool is that?

Joe Cool

I just returned to Ithaca from my hometown of Saugerties. On the way I stopped in Albany to visit and dine with one of my favorite, most talented, and most beautiful friends. It was really great.

My trip from Albany to here was somewhat eventful. The first event was when I was at a tollbooth exiting the NYS Thruway onto Route 88. There was only one lane open for cash, and there was just a single car in line there. I assumed that by the time I came to a full stop, it would be my turn, and I could pay my quarter and be on my way. Unfortunately, this was not to be. I was actually waiting in that spot for a full five minutes, mere feet from freedom.

During this time, the toll-person and the driver exchanged pieces of paper several times, the toll-person performed several unknown actions in her booth and pointed in several directions for the driver, and, judging by the amount of time and gesticulation, solved what I can only assume was the problem of world hunger. Or perhaps war.

Out of context, five minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time. But these minutes flowed with the same syrupy lack of speed as "waiting for Christmas morning" minutes, or "waiting for the bus" minutes, or "stuffed in the back of a non-ventilated, non-air-conditioned car" minutes. Or "football minutes."

The time waiting at the tollbooth, behind a single car that was already there for several minutes before I was, defined for me a new type of minute. This minute is a goliath, standing in for almost an hour's worth of its brethren. It was incredible. But, as alluded to in the title of this entry, I was as cool as a cucumber, and waited out my subjective hour, without going any further than the merest contemplation of violence.

There was no further excitement until I got off of Route 88 and started on the smaller roads. These are not roads where lighting is a high priority, and it makes driving at night very interesting. I had just come over a hill and shut off my high beams for an upcoming motorcycle when I saw something dart across the road, inches from the front of my car. It was a (very lucky) deer. It was freaky, but I was Joe Cool. I had been whistling along (I had already lost my voice from too much singing) to a Billy Joel song, and I didn't even miss a beat. This was even more amazing if you consider the fact that my heart stopped for about half a minute. Apparently heartbeat is not a prerequisite for whistling, at least not locally.

A bit later on the road, I had to steer a quick bump into my path to avoid a possum who was hanging out on the road in the middle of my lane. (He didn't even have time to pretend he was dead, although he did give me a panicked look.)

Finally, a bit later on, as I came to the top of a little hill a bat performed a nice swoop tangent to my windshield.

This is not to mention the other deer and the several cats I saw who didn't cross my path.

So I claim credit for not running over the possum, but the deer and the bat did it all on their own.

Crazy, man.

Lyrics to a fantastic song

To Morrow

I started on a journey just about a year ago
To a little town called Morrow in the state of Ohio.
I've never been much of a traveller and I really didn't know
That Morrow was the hardest place I'd ever try to go.

So I went down to the station for my ticket and applied
For tips regarding Morrow, not expecting to be guyed.
Said I, "My friend, I'd like to get to Morrow and return
No later than tomorrow for I haven't time to burn."

Said he to me "Now let me see if I have heard you right.
You'd like to go to Morrow and return tomorrow night.
You should have gone to Morrow yesterday and back today
for the train that goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way.

"If you had gone to Morrow yesterday now don't you see
You could have gone to Morrow and returned today at three,
For the train today to Morrow if the schedule is right,
Today it gets to Morrow and returns tomorrow night."

Said I "I'd like to go to Morrow, so can I go today
and get to Morrow by tonight if there is no delay?"
Well well I said to him, and I've got no more to say,
"Can you get anywhere tomorrow and get back again today"

Said I "I guess you know it all but kindly let me say
how can I get to Morrow if I leave this town today"
Said he "you cannot go to Morrow anymore today
for the train that goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way".

I was so disappointed, I was mad enough to swear
The train had gone to Morrow and it left me standing there.
The man was right in tellin' me "you are a howling jay,
You cannot go tomorrow." Well I guess in town I'll say.

The best $38.87 I ever spent.

Before I get started, I want to apologize. I just scanned my last entry, and I think it was poorly organized and spent too much space on uninteresting topics. My apologies.

Now, on with the show. Today I bought season one of The Muppet Show. It was the best thirty-eight dollars and eighty-seven cents I ever spent. Ever.

I think my favorite character is Zoot, the sleepy saxophonist named Zoot. (His picture is above.) Or maybe it's the comedic duo of Statler and Waldorf, pictured below.



The show is brilliant. I just watched Ruth Buzzi wrestle the monstrous to the ground. Amazing, absolutely amazing. And now she just tickled Kermit the Frog to the ground.

Writing down the dollar amount reminded me of something funny that a fellow math grad student told me. You know when you're spelling out the dollar amount on a check, and then you write the change as a fractional number of dollars? (Fifty-two cents is written 52/100.) Well, he said that he used to sometimes reduce the fraction. So instead of 52/100, he would write 13/25. He said that he stopped doing this after a store refused to take the check and made him write out another one.

This morning I saw a Time Warner Cable truck drive by, and it was inscribed with their current motto: "Time Warner Cable - The Power of You". I thought of another way of writing it.

st² + u^{Time Warner Cable} + x²y³

Do you get it?

I am such a girl.

Let me tell you about my most recent favorite movie. It is The Family Stone. It is a sweet and funny little movie about a family gathering together at Christmas. The children are all adults now, at least age-wise. One is married and pregnant with her second child, one is deaf and gay and married (or some legal equivalent) and in the process adopting a child with his partner, and two are apparently unattached, and one has just brought home the woman he intends to marry. This last is the main initiator of dramatic tension, because the lady-love is uptight and formal, in great contrast to the warm and fuzzy and slightly overbearing rest of the family. It's quite wonderful.

Just before that, I was somewhat obsessed with Love Actually. I can't remember exactly what was before that, but I'm sure it was something in the same neighborhood as far as mushiness goes.

Ok, I remember. Before that it was Bend It Like Beckham.

During my first year of college, I watched several movies over and over. (We didn't have cable in our rooms, or really anywhere on campus at the time, I think.) One of the ones I watched the most was My Best Friend's Wedding. I didn't really think I watched it that much, but several years later I heard that someone once asked my first-year roommate about me, and he replied that he had been a little weirded-out sometimes, because I watched that movie so often.

So it seems to be both my choice of movies and my willingness to watch them over and over and over.

I think part of it might be genetic. My mom isn't too much of a movie person, but my dad sure is. He loves escapist movies of all kinds, and he is definitely not shy about watching movies again and again. I recently brought a longtime campaign to a successful finish, regarding my dad. I'd been trying to get him to watch Love Actually. He was hesitant, primarily because he really doesn't like Hugh Grant. (My dad doesn't easily separate actors skills from their private lives, and he really hated certain parts of Grant's private life. My best friend in high school and I had similar issues regarding talking about girls, and specifically which ones were hot, etc. He would have trouble admitting that a girl was attractive if she also happened to be a jerk, whereas I was readily willing to separate these qualities -- for purposes of discussion only, of course.) (I may have made up some of that. That was more than ten years ago.) So, it took many visits for me to get my dad to watch the movie, but I finally succeeded last weekend. And of course, he loved it. He downloaded it onto his iPod and watched it several more times while commuting to work. (He commutes by bus. He wasn't driving and watching the movie.)

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I feel it's important to point out that not all movies I watch, and not even all movies I love, are mushy. I have like and love all sorts of movies. That's actually another quality regarding me and movie-watching that some people find unnerving, or at least a little strange. I like almost every movie I see.

I don't love every movie I see, but I probably love a lot more of them than most people, and I certainly like a lot more. It's difficult to find movies I've seen that I didn't like. Part of this is that I don't go to see movies I don't think I'll like (usually), but still, I watch a hell of a lot of movies. So when my close friends ask me if a movie was good, they know to take my answer with a grain of salt. And I have learned to separate my judgments into two parts:

(1) Did I like it?
(2) Was it good? (Would anyone else like it?)

There are two notable exceptions that spring to mind. I hated Black Hawk Down. To be fair, this was a predictable outcome, and I probably shouldn't have seen it in the first place. It was not my kind of movie. I also disliked Sideways. It wasn't awful, but I definitely didn't think it was that great, and I seemed to be stupendously in the minority. Still, I would watch Sideways again, but not Black Hawk Down.

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Two more things, on similar notes.

My ex-girlfriend used to change the Lifetime Channel's motto from "Lifetime - television for women", to "Lifetime - television for Tim". (There was a time when I was really into Golden Girls.)

Also, it's not just certain mushy movies that I've become obsessed with and watched repeatedly. Sometimes it's dumb kids movies, like Snow Day. And sometimes it's dumb comedies, like Road Trip and Boat Trip (and others that don't have "trip" in the title).

I am a man of strange tastes and strange habits.

But aren't most of us?

(At least, those of us who are men. The rest are women of strange tastes and habits. And I guess there are other categories, but I'll stop here.)