Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Ten bonus points to Alexandra for catching "Sector 7-G"

This is how my brain works: as I was typing, I was just thinking about some generic "sector" like you'd have in any industrial or aerospace application. And I pulled "7" out of nowhere (probably the depths of my memory). And then I thought, wait, there's a Simpsons reference there. (I had to look it up to be sure it was 7-G....yes, I actually googled "Homer's work sector" or something like that).

It actually kind of scares me sometimes how deep a level the Simpsons have penetrated in my memory. (The local Fox affiliate doesn't re-run the old episodes any more, instead they have three hours of local afternoon news. But when I was in grad school, I watched the re-runs every afternoon.) I don't like to think about how many microliters of neurotransmitters or how many neurons or however you measure memory capacity in humans is devoted to Homer's "Mmmmmm...." lines or to the little throwaway gags they stick in each show. (I hope I'm don't wind up to be 90 and living in some retirement home somewhere, and the only thing I can remember are the various couch gags or Nelson's "HA-ha")

No comments: