The Simpsons: 30 for 30 - Part Three

Like almost everyone else I stopped watching The Simpsons at least 15 years ago, but the show has still had a great influence on me and the stuff I say.

Nearly three years ago I drafted a list of my 30 favourite episodes.

About two and a half years later I finally finished PART ONE.

After a further six months, I've realised I'm never going to properly complete parts two and three. I blame COVID-19. Even for the four months of procrastination from November to March.

So instead I'm providing a very brief synopsis of each episode. Images are generated from the outstanding website frinkiac.com.

Here is PART TWO.

And once in a great while, we are privileged to experience an event so extraordinary, it becomes part of our shared heritage. 1969: Man walks on the moon. 1971: Man walks on the moon... again. Then, for a long time, nothing happened. Until now.

Presenting Part Three....

The Simpsons: 30 for 30 - Part Two

Like almost everyone else I stopped watching The Simpsons at least 15 years ago, but the show has still had a great influence on me and the stuff I say.

Nearly three years ago I drafted a list of my 30 favourite episodes.

About two and a half years later I finally finished PART ONE.

After a further six months, I've realised I'm never going to properly complete parts two and three. I blame COVID-19. Even for the four months of procrastination from November to March.

So instead I'm providing a very brief synopsis of each episode. Images are generated for the outstanding website frinkiac.com.

And now, without further Apu, here is Part Two... 

Not Listening to the Hottest 100

At midday on Saturday I realised, hey isn't the Hottest 100 on now?

J J J

A quick online search confirmed that 25 January was the #changethedate. Then I decided to go ahead and listen to a bunch of music I've never heard before.

Maybe later, I could even come to the conclusion that all new music is shit because as a middle-aged man I don't like what a youth radio station is playing.

Of course, it was different when my parents did that. They were wrong about new music. This time, I'd be right...

The Simpsons: 30 for 30 - Part One

I read in the news today that The Simpsons might end soon.

Like almost everyone else I stopped watching at least 15 years ago, but the show has still had a great influence on me and the stuff I say.

So to mark about 30 years of Our Favourite Family, I've taken out of mothballs this list of the top 30 episodes I started drafting about two years ago.

The plan is for it to be three parts.

This is Part One. It has lay dormant, complete and unpublished, for about 18 months. I never got around to Parts Two and Three, but I'm confident news of the end will push me on to finish.

Images are generated from the outstanding website frinkiac.com. Video links are from YouTube, and may or may not be of questionable copyright status, so if you're reading this from the future and links are broken you'll know why.

Music Appreciation

We were doing a road trip and in conversation with the six-year-olds it somehow came up that the voice of Bluey's dad was once the lead singer in a popular band, and that Dad really, really liked this band.

This was all A Long Time Ago.

A Long Time Ago in our house is defined by circumstances such as:

• only having five TV channels, and not being able to pause any of them;
• telephones being attached to your house by a cord, except for the ones in a box on the street that need coins to work; and 
• watching movies on something called a VCR, or even a DVD.

The six-year-olds ask to hear Bluey's dad. I was happy to oblige.

Review: The Simpsons Carbonated Beverages

On a recent family trip up the coast, we stopped at a local shopping centre for some supplies, then discovered a shop selling nothing but imported candy, chocolates, soft drink and other junk food.

I felt like a kid in some kind of store.

While I was disappointed with the unavailability of Skittlebrau and Gummy Venus de Milo's, I did discover these...

So here is the review of Duff Beer and the Flaming Moe...

Book Review: Mr. Tickle

Mr. Tickle is the original book in the Mr. Men series. It was written by Roger Hargreaves, after Adam - his son, and future successor as Mr. Men series author - asked him, what does a tickle look like?

It is a good question! And here is the apparent answer:

Another good question might be, what does a tickle act like? And the answer to that is rather disturbing.

The Rob's Blog 138th Post Spectacular

Live, from the Internet -- it's the Rob's Blog 138th post spectacular!

A List of All the Successful Careers Launched by The Voice

I Own Nine Books

We fixed up our home study recently. It was a nice improvement. I can now dial into work video conferences from home, without having to push boxes we never unpacked and unfolded baskets of clean clothes out of camera view.

There was some collateral damage though.

To create space, I got rid of almost all my books. These nine are the only ones I still possess...

Tuesday Tunes: Mixtape Vols. 1-4

On Facebook, I linked songs every Tuesday throughout 2017.

Here's the full playlist - burn it onto four CDs and put it on high rotation in your Discman immediately...

NRL Grand Final 2017

The NRL Grand Final this year wasn't an all-time classic like in 2015, nor did it come down to the wire and deliver a fairytale ending like 2016.

The best team all season clinically beat the outsider that had defied the odds to get there. There were no surprises.

In that sense, it reminded me a lot of the 1994 Grand Final, where Canberra beat Canterbury. Also the 1998 Grand Final, where Brisbane beat Canterbury. And of course, the 2014 Grand Final where Souths beat Canterbury.

That isn't to say there weren't some memorable moments in the game. My favourite moment from the 2017 Grand Final was this...

Peppa Pig

We are big fans of Peppa Pig in my household. It even finished in first place in the Official ABC4Kids Power Rankings a few years ago.

Peppa, accepting the trophy
for top power ranking. 

I find it interesting that online Peppa Pig appears to be a polarising figure. Peppa is making your children naughty. She is teaching them how to swear. And guilty of fat shaming. She is also a left-wing feminazi. And so on.

I think Peppa is a fairly accurate portrayal of a pre-school aged kid. Nothing more. Expectations beyond that are unfair. Perhaps even ridiculous.

Especially as the main pig role model of my youth was Porky Pig. Now there's a bad influence! Oh, and the Three Little Pigs too - a story where two pigs are killed due to low availability of quality construction materials (and perhaps no council approval), before the third reaps vengeance with a torturous retaliatory murder involving boiling water.

But no, it's a whiny four-year-old pig that's a terrible influence on your whiny four-year old child.

Anyway, here are my top five favourite moments from the show...

The Simpsons Quotes, Part Three

Part one is here, part two is here.

I thought I was done with The Simpsons quotes, but then frinkiac.com upgraded to allow creation of GIFs.

That Time I Watched All The Police Academy Movies In One Sitting

It was on this day, six years ago!

Here are some film reviews based on that experience. I've assumed you're familiar with the basic premise and characters.

My face after watching the seven
Police Academy films in one sitting

The Simpsons Quotes, Part Two

These are the other quotes I use most often.

Part one here.

Images from frinkiac.com!

The Simpsons Quotes, Part One

I've seen every episode of The Simpsons from when it was still a good show - about the first ten seasons - between three and approximately three-hundred times.

My wife thought I was funny until I gradually revealed all my best lines were recycled jokes from the show. Fortunately by the time she realised I was totally devoid of humour, we were married and she was trapped in our relationship with two children, so it's all good.

These are the quotes I use most often.

Credit to the amazing website frinkiac.com for the images.

Eurovision 2015: My Votes Are In!

For the first time in years, I watched Eurovision. Not live, the replay. I'm not getting up at 5:00am on a Sunday. I like to sleep in. So I get up at 5:40am when one of my children starts screaming, bring them into our bed, get headbutted and kicked for the next two hours, before getting up before you do anyway. A nice lie in to start a lazy Sunday.

Anyway, I watched Eurovision and they forgot to count my votes!

I greeted Vienna with "Hello, Lounge Room calling, here are the votes from Rob..." and got the disconnected tone.

So here are my points to be added on:

ABC4Kids - Official Power Rankings

As a parent, you start with strong principles, and gradually erode them. So on watching TV, we were of the view it would be none to minimal. Then it was a small amount each day as part of a routine. Now it's whenever they are hysterically upset, fighting each other, hysterically upset because they're fighting each other, or we need to do something uninterrupted - it can be anything from 30 minutes to all the time, daily.

So I've watched a lot of ABC4Kids and feel confident in the accuracy of the following power rankings. 

You can feel confident in the ratings too, knowing this is a scientific endeavour with a rigorous mathematical scoring system. 

I used three equally-weighted criteria, on a 0-3 scale.

The List: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

I wrote this many years ago, thought I'd update slightly and post here:

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES, is my favourite console. I played far more games in the next gen, and I acknowledge current consoles are graphically amazing, but it’s the SNES that represents my childhood. These are my ten most memorable SNES games, in a particular order. Alphabetical order!