Please do not Simpsonize me.

Matt is gone. This is not good. We are both parting to move away and pursue our dreams, but Madison was lonely enough when we were together.

Nonetheless, on Tuesday, my last day of work and his last day in town, we randomly decided to go see The Simpsons Movie at the Orpheum Theatre on State Street. It was a fitting epilogue -- I think both of us came here with the hope we'd have the time, connections and money to do more goofy or sophisticated things like this. So on the last day, we went. It was my first time inside the grand old Orpheum, a proper theatre complete with a balcony and the pompous private VIP balconies. You know the ones where the kranky old Swedes on "The Muppets" sat? Yeah, those. I don't know how many hundred seats abound in that building, but at 6 p.m. on the last day of July, six people showed up. I was sure we were in the wrong room, but lo and behold, we watched the movie in a proper theatre, with four other people.

It was good, thanks be. "The Simpsons" itself is that band's that so good, and you know they're so good, that you'd never give them up no matter how badly they sold out or how many idiots love them. I drew close to my breaking point with TV ads for the film, the kind that made me absolutely unwilling to watch Transformers, and I'm past it for people who've replaced their facebook photos with images of their Simpon-ized selves. If you're in this population, don't worry about it. I'm just defelcting my small swell of corporate selling-out angst toward you so I can still love the show and watch reruns day after day.

Fears persisted that the movie would be a reflection of the show in season 18 form -- weary and low on wit. However, it's good. Not outrageously funny, but funny. And credit to them for not giving in to stereotypes and dehumanizing people -- Flanders is easily the most likeable character in the film.

Now end the show. It's time. I've tolerated it's slipping because we don't hold cartoons to the same kind of standards, but let it go before I really start to notice.

It's too late to be Barry Sanders, but you don't have to be Roger Clemens, either.