1) The geese are back!!! I don't think they're very happy about it because it's still just below zero here (I think they might be questioning their goose leadership) but just the honking and piles of gooseshit make me feel warm inside.
2) The snow is melting! The giant mound of post-shovelled ice-snow in my front yard is shrinking a little bit every day. It was quite an impressive pile and attracted dogs from both near and far. Indeed, the competition for supremacy of the snowpile has been fierce and the mound looks like a giant applejuice snowcone now. It is a focal point of the neighbourhood.
3) This recipe is awesome: http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com/2008/10/matts-caramel-apple-crisp.html
4) In TWO Tuesdays, I am done my classes!!!! It's so close I can almost taste it. I can barely concentrate...concentrate...concentrate.
5) I've determined to build video games into my syllabi for next year. Pursuant to that determination, I have purchased the following games:
Here's the issue: my computer at home is from 1999 so it isn't powerful enough to play most of these games. My computer at work is awesome-sauce BUT I can't install any programs myself. I have to call down to tech support to have them come to my office and type in an administrator's password.This is embarrassing.
I've already done it once, for EIC. But I didn't have the other two yet so I couldn't ask Computerman Scott to just install them all at once.
I mean, 65% of my desire to play the games are for future educational purposes and that's a passing grade. It's just research. I'm just being a cool prof.
Has anyone played any of these? All feedback would be greatly appreciated.
So far EIC is disappointing. Not just for the history angle (I mean, really, setting up a diamond trading post in Cape Town in 1604 is just egregiously anachronistic) but it's actually a boring game: buying shit and taking a year to sail somewhere to sell that shit and buy other shit only to sail home again? And every three months they send me a financial report? That's too much like real life. If the music wasn't so swashbuckling, it would make me want to write a lecture.
I'm hoping Europa Universalis delivers a little more drama. Victoria (the gamers call it Vicky) hasn't arrived yet but I'm expecting it to engender a lot of moments of brilliant historical pedagogy.
All of these games have about a zillion sequels and expansion packs so my office hours are going to rock. Yes, I have other work to be doing. Thx.
6) I've decided to buy self a present to celebrate the end of semester. I can't decide what present to buy:
A) bread maker
B) toaster oven
C) microwave
Thoughts?
I know, my problems are boring but what else am I going to report? That I only have ONE TEAM left that has a shot of making it to the Final Four? Go Kansas!
7) I watched this movie:
and totally, totally loved it! Say what you will about the story, but that's what film-making is supposed to be like. Amidst super hero tales and animated talking-animal flicks, I'd forgotten that. It's completely mesmerizing. There's also food porn in it.I love food porn. Sometimes when I'm feeling down, I just watch the opening of Eat Drink Man Woman:
Okay, yeah, the animal-guts stuff is disturbing but I still love the realism and the whole thing just makes me feel good.
I've slowly realized that Eat Drink Man Woman and Io sono l'amore are the same movie. Hmm.
I made my mom watch Babette's Feast with me (another of the genre) when she was here in the fall and that was a disaster. If you don't get it, I can't explain it to you. She still refers to it as the "hours of torture."
In other news, I have to have my students over to my house for a potluck in April. It is customary for profs to take their seminars out somewhere or invite them to a meal at the end of semester. How does one student-proof a house? I hope Monty doesn't bite anyone.
