Old Films and Science

When I was a boy (shortly after the dinosaurs left the planet for good), my Mom caught me settling in front of the TV, my math book, paper and pencil in hand.  Does anyone else remember math paper?  It was about half the size of a standard sheet and had the texture of newsprint.  I had a teacher that used to punish bad behavior by making a student hold a folded piece of math paper between his teeth.  Gross.   Don’t believe me?  Try it with a piece of the NY Times.  But I digress.  When Mom saw me with my math book in front of the TV, she said, You can’t do homework in front of the TV.  You can’t concentrate.  She said the same thing when she caught me writing a report for American History to the tune of The Theme from Peter Gunn on my stereo.  You can’t concentrate with music on.   Like any good father, I passed on my mother’s wisdom to my kids.   But I’m here to come clean today.  It’s not true.

Bucket Lists

Thinking is extremely contagious here in the blogosphere.  Someone leaves a comment that you brush by in your haste to keep up … then a week later, it explodes into a post.   Or you read a post you like somewhere and are suddenly compelled to post on the same subject.  Recently, I read The Retirement Bucket List on listen to the sun rise, and here I am, writing about Bucket Lists.   I suspect that the term Bucket List … a list of things to do before you Kick the Bucket … predates the 2007 film of the same same but I can’t find any evidence to support my suspicions.   It probably doesn’t matter.   The film, in which Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) and Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) … two strangers who meet in the hospital as they find out they have terminal cancer … set out to fulfill their own to-do lists before they die, has brought the term Bucket List into common usage.  Here’s their list from ListAfterList.com: