Simpsons Sunday – Simpsons Canadian Connections

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. Before I get into the meat of this weeks post, I would like to wish my fellow Canadians a Happy Canada Day this coming Tuesday. As well as our friends to the south a Happy July 4th on Friday.
This week I am going to talk about the Canadian content in the show, as best I can.
If you have done your homework on the important people involved with the show, you know that Matt Groening has some Canadian background dew to his Father Homer, being born in Main Centre Saskatchewan. Some of the writers are also from Canada such as: Joel H. Coaen (born in Calgary Alberta) and Tim Long (born in Brandon Manitoba). Oh, let’s not forget Phill Hartman who voiced: Troy McClure, Lionel Hutz and Lyle Lanley was even born in Canada in the city of Brantford Ontario.
As for others who are from Canada, Dave Thomas voiced Rex Banner in the episode Homer VS. The Eighteenth Amendment. He was born in St Catharines Ontario and he is most famous for his character of Doug McKenzie in the Canadian comedy duo Bob and Doug McKenzie with Rick Moranis. His real brother is singer and song writer Ian Thomas who has also done well for himself and is still active in the music business.
As for characters, there are Canadian versions of: Flanders, Nelson and Milhouse, along with other background characters. For example: Gordy, one of the students in Barts new school in his class is from somewhere in Canada. He appears in the episode You Only Move Twice in Season 8.
The show has even taken the characters to parts of Canada in certain episodes. For example: Bart and Milhouse have traveled to Toronto in the episode The Bart Wants What It Wants. I think it is really cool that Toronto was used because I live there and was born there. Even Take Off by Bob And Doug McKenzie is featured in the episode. Even what was formerly known as Sky Dome, now Rogers Centre is also featured. If you are a baseball fan, this is where the Toronto Blue Jays play.
For more on the episode check this link out.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bart_Wants_What_It_Wants
On a sad note, we acknowledge the death of one time Simpsons writer Steve Viksten who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 53. He co-wrote the Season 21 episode Homer ScisorHands.
As usual to end each Simpsons Sunday post, I recommend checking out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
I also recommend checking out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
I should also mention Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
For some strange reason everyone I know hasn’t heard of them yet. Hopefully I can change that.
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. I would much prefer getting an email so I can reply directly to you, but that’s just me.
One final thing to mention is that you can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
You can also follow most of the voice actors on Twitter too. Harry Shearer is probably the most active with other things outside The Simpsons that he is involved with.
Anyway, that is it for this weeks post. Talk to you again on another Weather Wednesday.

blindgordie

Hi and welcome to another Weather Wednesday. This week I’m going to try and talk about those who chase storms as best I can. Despite that I follow some of them on Twitter I am almost clueless as to how it is done or why they actually do it. I should point out that I do admire their bravery to actually dice with danger because the weather doesn’t show any real mercy on us, despite what we may think. It just is what it is and that’s all we have.
For one thing, can you imagine a blind guy actually chasing a tornado or a very severe thunderstorm? I would think it would be impossible without ending up very badly injured or maybe dead.
Another thing to consider is that 100 percent of these people actually drive. Obviously I can’t so, that is that. Then again, with driverless cars on the way, maybe I could get into the fun or danger of chasing storms some day. For now, I am just as happy with my WX Radio on standby, sounding the alarm when a severe thunderstorm or tornado watch or warning is issued.
Well, unfortunately that isn’t much but that’s all I could think of for this Wednesday’s post.

Simpsons Sunday – Graduation And Last Day Of School

Hi folks and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. This week it is about graduating from high school and the last day of school. The two episodes which stand out for me that discuss these subjects well are: The Way We Was and Camp Krusty.
In The Way We Was, we see how Homer and Marge met and eventually became the husband-and-wife they are today. This is of course, despite Marge taking Artie Ziff to the prom, initially as her date. However it all changes when Artie gets too busy with his hands and Marge slaps him and demands that he take her home. She finds a dejected Homer in the mud and offers him a ride. Of course, he excepts and the rest is history.
In the case of Camp Krusty, the episode opens while Bart is dreaming of the last day of school. Principal Skinner instructs all the personal records to be destroyed. In reality, Bart gets a d after Homer tells him that if he didn’t pass he wouldn’t get to go to Camp Krusty. However, he decides to let him go because he didn’t want Bart hanging around the house all summer anyway. Then we see Bart, Lisa and the other kids going to Camp Krusty and well, you know what happens next. Right?
In my own case, I graduated 20 years ago and I had no date or anything like Homer did. I don’t even know if we even had a prom. I was probably the saddest I had ever been in my life to that point because I wanted to leave with my own girl friend but that wasn’t meant to be.
At our graduation ceremonies in 1994, I had to bring on a novelist who wrote a book about W Ross Macdonald school, many years ago. For those who are reading my blog for the furst time, this is a school for the blind in Brantford Ontario Canada, which is where actor Phil Hartman was born. Also, hockey great Wayne Gretzky is from there too. It is also where Alexander Graham Bell was said to have invented the telephone. At least, that is what we have been tought in Canada.
When I was younger, I loved the last week of school because we didn’t do a whole lot anyway and we got to go home on Wednesdays for the most part. I would be dreaming of what day camp I would be going to that summer and all the cool field trips we would be going on. In Toronto there are many places we went every year. My favourites are: The Ontario Science Centre, Centre Island, Ontario Place, Harbour Front, Adventure Playground and even the Coke Factory. There was even a summer when my day camp went to Mothers Pizza and we had free pizza for lunch.
The other part was also going on an overnight camping trip with the day camp. I didn’t mind it that much but I didn’t like having to eat regular food. I would have rather roasted marshmallows and had hotdogs and hamburgers for dinner. The other thing was that sometimes it rained and we had to stay in our tents. That sucked, especially since I had no idea that a few years later I would start to hear about Weatheradio Canada.
Anyway, to get back to The Simpsons, I like those two episodes in particular because they are the first ones to spotlight that time of the year. Also because they were aired during my favourite seasons of the series.
On the birthday front, happy 72nd birthday to Paul McCartney on June 18th. He guest starred in the episode Lisa The Vegetarian with his wife at the time Linda. This episode also reveals that Apu is a vegan. I like Paul’s work in The Beatles but not all of his solo and Wings material. I personally like the material up to about 1975, then that is where things kind of tail off for me. Yes, I like his harder rock stuff, compared to his softer and at times bouncy songs. For example: Silly Love Songs was one of those that would probably turn me off. All though I don’t really mind it much now because it is an important song in both his and Wings evolution. If that song didn’t exist I don’t know if there would have ever been any of his duets with either Michael Jackson or Stevie wonder in the 80s.
On a sad note, we lost Radio icon Casey Kasem last Sunday. He was of course the guy when it came to the American Top 40. He also voiced Shaggy on the TV program Scooby-Doo Where Are You? Yes, even as a rock fan, I liked American Top 40 too because we would hear the occasional good rocker and he did tell some funny stories. One of my favourites was about Canadian rocker Brian Adams being on tour with journey, some time in the 80s. While he was singing on stage, someone had the rather creative idea to pour corn flakes all around him until he was up to his neck in the breakfast cereal. I don’t remember exactly why this prank was pulled but I think he jokingly asked for some milk and a spoon or something.
Another thing you may not know is that he also did some Old Time Radio too. He appeared on an episode of Zero Hour playing a character which was killed. I don’t remember the names but I know it was him when I used to listen to a program called Theatre Of The Mind back when I was much younger.
Of course, The Simpsons would poke fun at his delivery, voiced by Harry Shearer. In the episode Radio Bart he announces that We Are Sending Our Love Down The Well has fallen from No. 1 all the way down to 97. You can find this episode on iTunes on the Season 3 collection and on the 20th Anniversary Collection.
As usual to end each Simpsons Sunday post, I recommend checking out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
I also recommend checking out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
I should also mention Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
For some strange reason everyone I know hasn’t heard of them yet. Hopefully I can change that.
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. I would much prefer getting an email so I can reply directly to you, but that’s just me.
One final thing to mention is that you can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Oh, I should also mention a great new band out of Hamilton Ontario who really rock, called Black Collar Union. You can follow them on Twitter @BCU_Music.

Weather Wednesday – Severe Weather

Hello my friends and new friends who are reading the blog. This Weather Wednesday I’m going to talk about severe weather events in general.
If you have ever gone to a weather spotting training sessionsevere weather is the main point of discussion, particularly the summer severe weather. It is the most dangerous time of the year for it to occur and yet the weather is warm enough that we can shed long sleaves and long pants.
Generally on a day when severe weather is predicted the weather is usually very warm or hot hazy and humid. The day will start out sunny and the clouds will roll in some time in the afternoon at around 2:00 or so. Sometimes thunderstorms will pop up dew to day time heating and that is another thing to be aware of, while venturing outside.
Around either late morning or early in the afternoon there may be a severe thunderstorm watch issued and that could be for a couple of hours or more. If the situation escalates to a severe thunderstorm warning, you should:
take cover when you hear thunder, make sure you are in a structure, like a building or vehicle with a metal roof. There are multiple Wikipedia articles on severe weather outbreaks and they all have what I said in common above.
Of course, if a tornado hits just go into the lowest place in your apartment or house and hope that you will be spared somewhat. Of course, if you are caught outside just go to a low area and cover your head to avoid flying debris. First and formost, when thunder roars, get yourself inside as soon as possible. If you can hear it you are at risk of being struck by lightning.
There was a news story yesterday, about 4 people playing golf who were all struck by lightning in Greater Toronto Area, where I live. I personally think that if you are an out doors person you should own a Weather Radio or two, so you can be better prepared for if and when thunder roars. It also wouldn’t hurt to attend a weather spotter training session in your local area and if you have a smart phone, there are apps which can provide you with up-to-date weather alerts. I always have a Weather Radio with me where ever I go now and it is usually one of the newer SAME radios or my BC346XT scanner. Since they can open up to both SAME and 1050 Hz tone you can use them as a WX radio. All though, Uniden doesn’t really recommend using it as a main receiver for WX alerts. I sometimes do and I make sure I prepare before going out, especially this time of year and in winter.
Well, that is this weeks post. Any comments? Just email me at blindgordie@gmail.com or you can comment here, somewhere.

Simpsons Sunday – Itchy And Scratchy

Hello and welcome to another Simpsons Sunday. Before I get into the meat of this weeks post I would like to wish all the Fathers who may be reading it a happy Fathers Day. I am currently not one but I hope to have kids some day.
This week I’m going to talk about the show within a show. Yes, I’m going to try and talk about Itchy and Scratchy. It will be a rather daunting task because they hardly speak and all I hear is music and sound affects, but here goes anyway.
As those of us who watch The Simpsons are aware, Bart and Lisa’s favourite show is the Itchy And Scratchy Show, with it’s theme song which is rarely played in its entirety and we usually hear it from when the words to it are sung. After that there is music and noises from either Itchy or Scratchy. Then something happens to Scratchy which is usually fatal. Or is it Itchy, who suffers death at the hands of Scratchy? Well, all I can say is that they both try to kill each other and that’s as far as I can tell.
From what I have read, what ever happens in these episodes usually reflects what is going on in the current Simpsons episode. For example in Like Father Like Clown, Itchy and Scratchy are playing with their sons and this brings Krusty to tears and gives Lisa and Bart the insentive to find Krusty’s Father.
Another thing which is a challenge is to match the Itchy and Scratchy episodes with its parent Simpsons episode, according to Simpsons Wiki. I can’t see the titles on the screen and can only rely on the audio.I guess if I really wanted to match episodes I could look at the appearances and that might help.
One thing I can say I understand are the words to the theme song. Oh, on that note: the ending theme has more than one version. There is the version which has the piano and the female chorus singing it and there is a faster version with more cartoony type voices singing it. This version appears in the Season 3 episode When Flanders Failed. This is after Bart watches his second Itchy And Scratchy episode during this Simpsons episode. Unfortunately we don’t get to see or hear what it is because there are other events going on surrounding other characters. I’m sure there are other examples but I can’t think of any right now.
Of course they are also used to discuss topics such as: censorship and jumping the shark. The former being: Itchy Scratchy And Marge and the latter being The Itchy Scratchy & Poochie Show. For a show within a show it has been of great benefit to The Simpsons over the years and I love it. For a list of the Itchy and Scratchy episodes just look on Simpsons Wiki under the list of episodes and the titles are enough to make you laugh your ass off. I read some of them yesterday and I nearly busted a gut laughing so hard.
On the birthday front, happy birthday to Simpsons writer Greg Daniels who turned 51 on Friday the 13th. He was a part of the writing staff for Seasons 5 and 6. He wrote three of my favourite episodes: Homer And Apu, Secrets Of A Successful Marriage and the Season 7 episode Bart Cells His Soul. He went on to work with Mike Judge on King Of The Hill and later, on The Office and Parks And Recreation.
Happy 83rd birthday to Jackie Mason, who celebrated on June 9. Of course, he won an Emmy award for voicing Krusty The Clown’s Father Himan Krustovsky,on the episode Like Father Like Clown in 1992. This was also of course, after he accidentally gave at Sullivan the finger, when he appeared on the ed Sullivan Show in the 60s. In 2004 he also voiced the East River Creature on the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
As usual to end each Simpsons Sunday post, I recommend checking out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
I also recommend checking out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
I should also mention Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
For some strange reason everyone I know hasn’t heard of them yet. Hopefully I can change that.
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. I would much prefer getting an email so I can reply directly to you, but that’s just me.
One final thing to mention is that you can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and it is still going strong. I’m looking forward to Season 26 and especially the premier, when a character will die. I’m not going to speculate on who it is and I will leave my own idea’s of who it could be out of this blog, until the episode airs.

Weather Wednesday – Surviving a WXR Outage

Hi and welcome to another Weather Wednesday. This week I’m going to touch on something I have mentioned before but on a different angle. What can you do if your local Weather Radio transmitter is off the air? This is what happened to those of us who live in Toronto Ontario Canada on Sunday and most of Monday.
To give you the background on this outage, it started at 12:59 A.M. on Sunday morning. I put out the word on both Twitter and Facebook, as well as on the websites of Amateur Radio groups I belong to. I also took it upon myself to monitor 162.400 MHz, which is the frequency for Toronto Weather Radio XMJ225, which is the subject of this blog and the outage. I heard a few stations during the outage including one in Erie Pennsylvania, Cleveland Ohio and in Goderich Ontario. The one in Pennsylvania was the most prevalent and it kept me company while I was sleeping on Sunday night.
I had also received unhappy tweets from some people and I will not repeat them here or in my newsletter but I did reply to them to do as much damage control as I could. I guess what I am trying to say in this post is that if you have knowledge of what other stations are on the same frequency as your local WXR, you can use it to your advantage and you get to dx. Shortwave listeners do this all the time and as a licensed Ham, I weather dx when I can and this was a real field day for me.
On Monday afternoon at around 3:14 P.M. Toronto XMJ225 went back on the air. It took a few minutes for it to completely load all the updated data but it is working now as this post has been released.
Well, that’s it for this weeks post.

Simpsons Sunday – The Year In My Life From June 2013 To Present

Hello my friends.Today’s post picks up where last Sundays post left off. Basically, it is a recap of the year in my life since I was a casual fan and now a Simpsons nut. As you will see, later in this post I would try to work the show into anything I did.
Let’s start from June 2nd 2013. Well, I started watching a whole bunch of episodes on Youtube, as I mentioned last week. I began reading up on all the characters and the voice cast. I even began reading Yeardley Smith’s blog, at the end of the summer. Oh… wait… I’m getting ahead of myself.
I had a copy of The Simpsons Moovy, which I listened to the whole way through, for the first time in early July. I had it for a couple of years, thanks to a friend who is also a Simpsons fan and is also blind. It got me through all the crap I was going through with pests in my apartment and having to deal with all the other issues surrounding it. There were times when I was just miserable and almost in tears.
At some point in July, I began writing my own Simpsons episode scripts. I have 2 stories which I have almost completed but would like some help with making them funny. One is where Homer goes blind, thanks to an accident at the nuclear plant. The other is about Krusty retiring again and sinking low enough to go to Canada to become a pan Hendler. He makes a contest winner his permanent replacement and Bart goes to find Krusty and try to bring him back, with the help of his replacement.
Also during July, I had discovered ways to get even more information on the show, through fan websites and I even found the scripts on the internet too. I read the episodes I knew and I wanted to check the spelling of some words and how the growns, mowns and screams were written. Sometimes it was just written as :grown” or “scream” when Homer would make one of those sounds.
In August I began to get more into the inner workings of the show than ever. I looked for interviews with: Matt Groening and with each of the cast members about their characters. One thing I should mention here is that almost all of the main voice cast sound much younger than their actual age. For example: Nancy Cartwright is 56 but she sounds like she is about 20 years old. Yeardley Smith also sounds like she is around the same age, even though she is approaching 50. The only one who doesn’t actually sound younger is Julie Kavner. She actually sounds like she is about my age, minus the honey gravel in her voice. Even Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer sound younger, even though they are all now over 40, like I am too.
The only cast member whose voice timbre changed ever so slightly was Marcia Wallace, who voiced Mrs. Krabappel. I listened to the earlier episodes then compared her voice to some of the more recent episodes. I did notice a slight change in the sound of her voice and well, I guess that comes with age. I notice it a lot with my favourite singers and it is interesting to hear the evolution of a voice, from young adult until they are older.
I also began to collect as much Simpsons music as I could find on CD. It was hard to get all of what I wanted because some of it was discontinued or unavailable on iTunes. I had some nights when I was crying because I didn’t think there was any hope of finding: Songs In The Key Of Springfield and Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons on CD. However, it happened on September 19th when the week before, I had ordered it from a record store I would sometimes frequent in downtown Toronto and when I had them in my hands I was understandabley happier than Homer with Duff Beer.
Around the end of summer I joined Twitter and began following The Simpsons and anyone else associated with the show, whom I could find and whose names I recognized. For the record, Yeardley Smith was the first person I followed. On the night of the latest installment of the annual Treehouse Of Horror series, The Simpsons followed me on Twitter. I was of course, ecstatic. I now could get the latest news from the show and some Youtube videos along the way, which did happen.
As I mentioned earlier I started reading Yeardley Smith’s blog and she inspired me to start this one. There have been other such blogs that I could have read that I had more access to, but something made me start reading it at the end of August. I’m not going to get into detail but it did give me more of a peak into her life as a celebrity and who she is as a person. She seems like a very nice lady and clearly is happy with her life now. Some of my early posts in this blog came from her as my own take on them.
As I became more familiar with Twitter, I began to follow more Simpsons fan accounts. This includes: Simpsons Wiki, Simpsons Tweets, SpringfieldX2 and most of the characters. Twitter is how I found out about Marcia Wallace’s death. I was upset by it, despite that I had never met her and had only learned about her a few months before. People had commented that she was very kind and I believe that to be true. She may have played Mrs. Krabappel but she did show a side to the character that isn’t that well known toward Bart. At the end of Bart Gets An F, he cries after she fails him and tells her that he really tried. She comforts him and I heard that kind tone in Marcia’s voice, when she says “there there” as Bart is crying. People were saying how sweet Marcia was and I could agree with that, based on that moment alone.
If you have been reading my blog from my first post, I have made a point of putting my own slant on various Simpsons related topics and I will continue to do this every Sunday. I have my own list of my favourite episodes and my favourite characters, minus the immediate Simpsons family. On that note, when people have asked me who my favourite character is I always say it is the Simpsons family. I like all of them for different parts of my personality. I can be a real goof and an impatient jerk like Homer, very patient like Marge, whiny and honest to a falt like Lisa, I was a bit of a hand full like Bart as a kid and I’m quiet like Maggie. I also have some other personality traits of other characters on the show as well.
This year, I took the plunge and went on iTunes. I have downloaded a bunch of Simpsons episodes that I liked that I could find. I also downloaded both of Dan Castellaneta’s solo albums and I like them both. His rock album Two Lips sounds a lot like the Beatles, or rather The Rutles. I like his Ringo Star vocal on the song Feat On The Ground. Everything else isn’t bad either but I couldn’t tell who he was trying to imitate of the other 3 Beatles. It sounds to me like he is more into the: Revolver, Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour period of the bands active life.
With his other album I Am Not Homer, both him and his wife Deb Lacusta made me laugh, especially with the bits as radio personalities. Check out the tracks: AM Therapy and Drive Time and you will be laughing your ass off after a few listens too.
I also downloaded Nancy Cartwright’s audiobook version of her book My Life As A 10-Year-Old Boy. It gave me a new found respect for what she does and has done in her life. She has brought The Simpsons even closer to all of us who have read this book and has given us a real honest look at how things have changed through the years in how you record both music and diolog. Her descriptions of her fellow cast members sounded exactly like I had pictured each of them. If you want to check it out both the book and the audiobook are available on iTunes.
A few weeks ago, I posted about The Simpsons and Ham Radio because I am also a licensed Ham with the call VA3WXA. Principal Skinner used the call sign WA3QIZ and it is an actual call which exists. If you want to look it up on Google, go ahead. I have been trying to find a connection to the show and Ham Radio and that was one of my few times when they both intersect. In that post I also provided a link to an article on this topic.
Finally, another thing I have going for me is my Weather Radio Listeners Newsletter. The Simpsons have never mentioned NOAA Weather Radio but I managed to talk about them in some more recent issues. I am highlighting the episodes which have weather as a main plot device in the last issue and the next 2. A couple issues before the last one, I made a point of talking about the show and how weather has been inserted into some episodes. This became what I mentioned above.
If you would like to take a look at some of what I have done just click on the link below.
http://www.qrz.com/db/va3wxa
Not all issues are available here so you will need to join the mailing list by emailing me directly. Check out the next few paragraphs for my email address.
I am doing this because it is the 25th anniversary of the seriesand there is a part of my audience which I feel should be aware of the show and how it isn’t just about a dysfunctional family but it also talks about relevant issues which affect all of us every day.
On the birthday front, happy birthday to original Show Runner for The Simpsons, Sam Simon. He celebrated his 59th birthday on Friday. He has also worked on: Taxi, Cheers, The Tracey Ulman Show, The George Carlin Show and others. I wish him well in his fight against his terminal illness.
As usual, don’t forget to check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
I also recommend checking out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
This is the blog I commented on earlier in this post and it is very well done.
I should also mention Marchez Vous, which is her shoe designer company. Right now, they design women’s shoes. You can check out their website at
http://www.marchesvous.com
I provided it here because everyone I know hasn’t heard of them yet. Hopefully I can change that.
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. I would much prefer getting an email so I can reply directly to you, but that’s just me.
One final thing to mention is that you can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
Thanks Al for the nice reaction to last weeks post. It was a very kind gesture from someone who runs a show, which makes millions of people laugh every week around the world. For my part, everything I right is from my heart too.

Simpsons Sunday – The Simpsons For My Birthday Last Year

Hello to all who are reading my blog, either for the first time or as a an old vet. This is the 101st post and I am very happy that this occurred now.
This week I’m going to talk about my blog and why it looks like it does. I will also be discussing my 40th birthday last June 2nd and my 41st birthday tomorrow. It may sound silly or pretentious but there is a significant connection to The Simpsons here. I will explain in the next few paragraphs.
If you are new to my blog and you notice there are no photo’s, I don’t have any. Everything you see here is done on my iPhone and I don’t know how to use the camera or insert photos into a post.
Also, if you notice the name of my blog, (BlindGordies Blog) it gives you a very obvious hint of my disability. I am totally blind and have been since birth. I was born at a rather modest birth weight of 2 pounds and 6 ounces. I was 3 months premature and was put into an incubator. When I came out I was totally blind. You could say I am a miracle baby and well, maybe that’s true. As a result I have been rather skinny all my life and I’m also short at 5 foot 3.5 in. This may explain why I get carded when I go into places where drinking is involved.
How did i become a Simpsons Nut? Well, I have this habit of going on the internet and in particular, Wikipedia and Youtube. Also, every few years I would become obsessed with something. Weather it is: a band, a singer or in this case, a television show and I became obsessed with The Simpsons through both of these avenues.
On October 24th 2012, I was looking to hear interviews with some of the old guard of the cartoon voices such as: Mell Blanc, don Messick, Daws Butler and others. I stumbled on an episode of Inside The Actors Studio, which had The Simpsons cast as the guests and I took a listen to most of it.
I have said this in an earlier post but I was shocked and surprised to hear what Dan Castellaneta sounded like in his own speaking voice. Of course, he is the voice of: Homer, Krusty The Clown, Barney, Mayor Joseph Quimby, Groundskeeper Willie and others. When he went into Homer’s voice and his other voices during the segment James Lipton spoke to the Simpsons characters I was amazed.
Another revelation for me was actually hearing: Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria in their own speaking voices for the first time as well. I had heard Harry Shearer and Nancy Cartwright before, as they had done interviews on both radio and TV. One other thing I should mention was actually hearing both the name and the voice of Al Jean for the first time too. Al sounds like he is one of the nicest people you’d ever meet. I certainly hope that my observation is correct.
The other part to this transition from casual fan too plain Simpsons nut is Wikipedia. As I said earlier, I like to go on Wikipedia a lot. As 2013 rolled around and my 40th birthday drew nearer, something happened that would make a change in my life.
I began noticing that most of my favourite bands all had some connection with The Simpsons, whether they were guest stars or had their music played on the show. Before Wikipedia came along I was, as I said, a casual fan and loved hearing the voices and the catchphrases on the radio and other media outlets. I also began to research all the characters and their respective voice actor. My favourite characters have been mentioned in past posts and on early tweets. As for the voice cast, I was and still am impressed with each one of the main cast and how much other work they have done and still do, despite the continuation of the show.
Also around this time, I had some issues with my apartment, which involved pests and The Simpsons kept my spirits high, during this rather weird time in my life. This included YouTube and Wikipedia. More on YouTube in a minute.
With Wikipedia and other Simpsons Wiki sights I was looking at all the episodes and their plots. I realized that I had missed a lot of them since the 90s because I didn’t have a TV and I only heard certain episodes on CBC at 5:00 P.M. Monday to Fridays, when I could hear some TV channels on the radio, below 87.5 MHz. Remember when you could listen to TV on the radio? I miss that!
On the weekend of my 40th birthday, I started going on Youtube and looking for specific episodes to watch and I found a great deal of them that I would watch over the next few weeks. I can’t name them all but there were a lot. However I didn’t watch every episode from Season 1 to Season 24 because I couldn’t find them all. Plus, I don’t have wifi in my apartment.
I have managed to download onto my phone almost all the episodes currently available from iTunes wich I like. I mentioned in last weeks post that I had watched the episode Homers Enemy for the first time. It didn’t really sink in how much I would grow to like it.
Since then I have collected all the music from The Simpsons that was released on either CD or digitally. I have also been on iTunes and downloaded some Simpsons ringtones for my iPhone, including Homer saying “d’oh” and “woohoo, among others. As I said earlier, I have downloaded as many episodes which I liked that I could find. Unfortunately, not all seasons of The Simpsons are available on iTunes, yet. Hopefully that will change sooner rather than later. Also, I downloaded both of Dan Castellaneta’s albums and Nancy Cartwright’s book My Life As A 10-Year-Old Boy in audiobook form.
Joining Twitter was another step toward getting closer to The Simpsons and both fictional and nonfictional characters involved with it. I follow The Simpsons and they follow me too. “Woohoo!”
I also follow most of the voice actors and staff involved with the show. Another thing I like to do is make a point of tweeting my birthday wishes to everyone whom I follow on The Simpsons and I make sure to mention them here too. I just feel that wishing people a happy birthday is a nice thing to do.
As for my 40th birthday last year on Sunday June 2nd, not much happened. The only thing was a quick day trip up north from Toronto to Barrie, just because I could. So, there was no big 40th birthday celebration on tap for me last year. I just became more immersed in The Simpsons, like I did with my favourite bands before them. They include: Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, The Beattles, Queen, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Korn, Slipknot, Pantera, Sepultura and Tool. With each one I would try to collect as much material from them as I could and with The Simpsons they weren’t an exception.
I had a hard time finding some of the albums with songs from the show, because they had been discontinued and I felt discouraged to the point of being near tears. However I managed to get my hands on all the albums in one form or another and I am now a happy guy. I have mentioned my favourite to least favourite CD in a past post, a few months ago.
Well, my birthday is coming up tomorrow. I will be 41 but I still look and act younger than my age. What do I want for my birthday? Well, a Simpsons jacket or a T-shirt would be nice. I am having a hard time finding something to ware with The Simpsons characters on it. If I get an RT or a follow on my birthday that would be sweet too.
I have been thinking about why The Simpsons became as much a part of my life as they have at this time of uncertainty. Maybe, just maybe they are helping me get through my midlife crisis. I don’t know but that could be true. If so: Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Sam Simon, Al Jean, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and everyone else involved with the show over its continuing run deserves many, many many, thanks from me. The show gives me some comfort when life is hard and when I am almost crying. The characters on the show may be a bit much for us to handle in real life but I don’t mind them all. Even though Mr. Burns has done some things which rub me the wrong way sometimes throughout the series. Such as when he tries to convince Bart that Homer and Marge don’t want him anymore. That is the only time the show made me angry. Otherwise I love it and will love it for the rest of my life.
Speaking of birthdays, Danny Elfman, who composed the Simpsons theme song cellebrated a birthday on Thursday. He turned 61 and has done other composing for film and television. He was also in the new wave band Oingo Boingo. Remember them? I should be perfectly honest and say that I never really listened to them because I grew up mainly a rock and metal fan and still am to this day.
As usual to end each Sunday post, check out both Chris Ledesma and Yeardley Smith’s blogs respectively. http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com/
Also, you can follow Al Jean on Twitter. In case you are new to both my blog and The Simpsons, he is the current Show Runner. His Twitter Handle is @AlJean.
If you have comments you can make them here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will respond to each one I receive. You can also contact me on Skype if you like and my Skype name is blindgordie like my gmail address. I hope to hear from anyone who is either following me now or is reading this post.
One more thing, if you do decide to follow this blog there are posts on The Simpsons, Weather and anything else that I think of writing at the moment. You never know when I may post something new.
On the subject of weather, I also have my own newsletter, which is mainly about Weather Radio, both in Canada and the US. I also talk about weather affecting our dayly lives and in pop culture. To get an idea of what I am up to, just click on this link and you will find some of the issues in tact. http://www.qrz.com/db/va3wxa You may have to copy and paste the links to my email, the blogs or my webpage on QRZ.
Anyway, take care and I hope you have enjoyed reading this post.