cymbaljack

As I make the final preparations to start classes again tomorrow, I thought it would be useful to review the many lessons this summer provided. They say if you reflect on your learning, it will be more meaningful and lasting, and you may get a blog entry out of it.

• When it is very hot, I don't want to do anything.
• Very muggy, ditto.
• Americans suffer from the most bizarre form of impatience known to humanity. This was demonstrated by all the people standing in line for midnight showings/releases of things like Star Wars 3: Hacking the limbs off a Sith and Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Plot. (Yes, I have been waiting for almost a month to use that joke. Yes, I know it will hack at least one reader off. Hi, Laurel!) What is strange about this is that it means they waited a long time, not to be first, but to be among the first millions. Either they were impatient to be able to talk about the things with other people, or they were ironically willing to wait in line just so they wouldn't have to wait any more. (I went to the Star Wars movie like 6 weeks after it came out, and we bought HP the "morning after" at 8:30 am--no line, no fuss.)
• If a movie came out in the summer of '05 and did not star Johnny Depp or penguins, you don't want to see it.
• Duluth is always a good idea in the summer. International Falls is not, necessarily.
• My wife really, really likes playing the bass. And I really, really like it when something makes her that happy.
• It's going to be a great fall. Consider:

1. New Switchfoot album (9/13)
2. New Kendall Payne album, long overdue (end of September, if I remember right)
3. Wallace and Gromit movie (10/7)
4. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (which means Charlie and the Chocolate Factory won't even be his best movie this year!)
5. Battlestar Galactica season 1 and The 4400 season 2 out on DVD
6. And, of course Serenity, finally, in theaters on September 30