Mike O'Connell

‘Round these parts today’s the last day of “summer vacation,” a quaint 20th-century phrase describing the months plowing the corn fields or whatever we did before smartphones.

There’s another quaint phrase from one of this century’s great philosophers, Craig Williams. You know him as Craig… of the Creek.

Craig once opined that Summer’s over but we still have the weekend.

Wise words. Actually we have weekends, holidays, and every single evening. Heck, school can be fun sometimes too.

Every time you get home from being out of town you think How can I make my regular life more like vacation?

Exactly.

This is the year we never turn off the fun of summer.

To borrow another 20th-century phrase…

this is the Endless Summer.

Today on Math and Musings I’m flying solo, but continuing the conversation begun last week with my son. Don’t worry, I still used him as a consultant on the episode.

Uncredited and unpaid.

Friday’s episode of How To with John Wilson gave some airtime to my hometown and alma mater, referred to often on this blog and its accompanying podcast as “the old country.” It’s the old country for Wilson as well, who graduated from Binghamton University in 2008. Scenes from Friday’s episode showed him back on campus, not fitting in at a frat party, not fitting in on State Street (Tom & Marty’s!), and not fitting in at his old dorm.

I know the feeling. I was too old for that place about 10 minutes after I graduated. For me it’s now been two decades, and, as I often find myself saying when thinking about Binghamton… ugh.

More reasons to keep on living include Season Two of Winning Time, which kicked off said season Sunday night with an inspired hour of television.

At times sports, at times drama, and at times pure poetry (seriously–listen to Jason Segel’s Paul Westhead), Winning Time is blessed with some old-school HBO magic from back when it was HBO. (If you’re looking for it now on your TV it’s “Max.”)

The best comparison I can make for the show is Entourage, of which I sang praises for years. Shows that are “cool” and have actors that actually put forth effort are rare; Winning Time brings this blissful combination. Seeing movie stars and athletic stars is always cool, but seeing their human side (at least the TV version of it) evokes an old phrase: It’s not TV… it’s HBO.

Amen.

At the top of today’s episode of Math and Musings I note that the date is August 8, 2023.

Spoiler alert… it is not.

I say the correct date some time later, not realizing that I jacked it up earlier in the episode.

Proof again that there is never an edit or second take on MAM, just a straight 15 minutes of science, politics, news, and opinion.

Today we celebrate the life and times of another fallen musician, the late Conrad Ross. Like the man, the episode is timeless.