COVERING MY LIFE SOURCE IN FUDGE AND WHIPPED CREAM

This marks the end of the second longest blog hiatus I've ever had. The first longest was 12 years ago when I temporarily lost use of my brain because I ate 39 Twix bars in 46 seconds. It wasn't a dare, I just thought it might look cool and I was trying to impress this new kid at my school named Dino who had his own table saw. I may not have written anything, but I did play the best checkers of my life during that stretch, that not only captured the hearts and minds of the local media, but of Dino, who you may know today as Paul Rudd.

I feel rusty. It's the same kind of feeling one gets when it runs out of chewin' tobacco so it has to chew rubber bands instead. Then it realizes that chewing rubber bands is actually better because it's like chewing gum with built in floss. Dentists know this trick but they won't tell anyone because if they did they'd all be out of business. And what can a dentist do besides be a dentist? Pearl cleaner? Sure, but good luck getting one of those jobs. You have to know someone. And dentists only know other dentists. A dentist who knows a pearl cleaner is the ultimate human.

Since I last typed words into your zone, I had a Christmas and a Christmas vacation, a New Year marked and a New Year holiday and I went bowling once. I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent most of the time watching television, playing a video game where I get to pretend I'm a pro hockey player and thinking of local restaurants I haven't been to yet. In fact, I watched so much TV and love it so much that I even took pictures of it, as if it were my new pet bird who if real, would be called Jaspin.

Sometimes I can't wait until my digestive tract processes apples for a nice, long apple dump. Thankfully, Turner Classic Movies has me covered during the wait.

Please watch "Toronto's Talent" on Rogers Cable. This guy Memphis played a very simple blues riff for seven minutes and I think the song was called "Rockin' All Night"

Do you take Smike to be your lawfully wedded husband?

Before you start accusing me of being a lazy old mint who not only watches TV but takes pictures of it so he can post them on the Internet, which he does while he watches TV, please know that in January I'm acting in a play that will prevent me from watching TV and taking pictures of TV on a regular basis. Since I knew I was going to create entertainment come the new year, I thought I'd finish off the old year by consuming entertainment so that everything evens out. If a pizza master knows he's got a gig coming up where he's cooking up a couple hundred hot pies for a landlord looking to trap a bunch of Italians hiding in the wall, he's probably going to spend all the time leading up to the big day pigging out. He knows that when he's baking up all those cheesy babies he's going to want to eat them but he can't because of the laws of business, so he pre-stuffs, extracting all the satisfaction he can before he knows he'll be tempted. That's just mathematics 101 with Professor Commonsense, 2 classes a week for four months in the Obvious Building, South Lecture Hall, Main Campus.

Stick with me this year! There'll be tons of fun, brand new instructions on how to live better and eat longer, and hot pics of things that make you shiver. The year Twenty EGlennven. The year of putting my name into regular words.

BRIEFS IN SHORT

Over the past week I've seen some of the most heartwarming, and at times, heartbreaking television. Watch out books, Marshall McLuhan was right -- "TV rules". Did you guys watch Battle of the Blades last night? So many stories! Such good moves. Great show. I like how the show is like Dancing with the Stars and American Idol etc. but instead of glitz and glamour, Battle of the Blades is hosted by an old man and a little bald guy. Actually, most Canadian television personalities are some combination of old/little/bald.

Then there was this thing on Project Runway where this little guy told the world that he's HIV positive, and then his outfit won the challenge and the whole world was just hugging each other. He inspired me to share my secret, which is that I hate toads. Just kidding, I don't have any secrets and I don't mind toads, except those big ones that take your money if you don't solve their riddles.

Yesterday I went apple pickin'. There's nothing heartbreaking about that, unless you're a freak who thinks apples are living things too, and shouldn't be eaten. I guess those people don't actually exist because they wouldn't be able to eat anything except like, Tang. Before pickin' we went on a hike at Rattlesnake Point, famous for once being the backdrop to an episode of "My Secret Identity". In the episode Jerry O'Connell had to stop a wood nymph from turning the forest into a real deal gremlin patch. Anyway, the hike turned into a full-on cross-country bushwhack headed by my friend's dad, who is in his sixties but still climbs mountains and skis like a damn ice croc.

Once of several hills we all almost fell down

We had to climb this fuckin' face

So now I have way too many apples and a bunch of cider. If you come over I'll provide you an apple feast. I've already fed three weary travelers and here's their review:

"My favourite part was the apples"

"Pretty good, but way too much ham in the apple gumbo"

"Cool bathroom at that place"

SHE MAY LOOK LIKE A PUMPKIN BUT HER TA TAS ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD

Over the years I've been accused by my friends and family of being a piece of shit guy at watching TV thanks to my spastic channel changing. I admit, I have a wild style, but people thought the same thing about Guy Fieri and now he's America's hottest bleached chubster.

Because of the advent of the PVR, I'm probably worse than I ever was. I'm so accustomed to fast forwarding that when I watch regular TV, the commercials burn my balls way more than before and so my trigger finger itches like the ants in my pants digging into my burning balls. I'm not going to tone down my ways though. Did Mozart stop playing piano because his mom wanted him to be a mustard man? As far as I know, he didn't. Instead, I can only share some of my techniques so you can better understand where I'm coming from and maybe learn a thing or two about how the big boys do it.

Modern times

Here's my ideal live TV watching scenario:

First, I have to catch one of my favourites at the beginning of its episode. So let's say Real Housewives is on and I happen to catch it at the start, and I realize that's it's a Vicki-heavy joint with a dash of Slade and Gretchen. Ideal. As I'm watching this, I gotta find a backup to watch during the inevitable commercial breaks. The perfect backup is a movie that I've seen that I love. For example, last night I think I was watching Top Chef Masters or something, and Crocodile Dundee was on. I'd define Crocodile Dundee as the perfect backup -- I can tune in at any point in the film and still enjoy it, and I don't really have much of a problem leaving it to go back to my primary because I've seen it so many times. But if it's at that part where Linda Kozlowski reveals the most unreasonable outback attire of all time, I'm willing to stick around.




That's one of my dad's favourite scenes of all time. Anyway, there's still a chance that your backup will be on commercial so you need a second backup as well. My current second backup is that new channel AUX TV because their commercial breaks are short and usually they just play music videos, which are great because they're short and sweet so you don't get emotionally involved. Another good backup is just having a stew on the stove you can look after, but since this is about TV, I say poo to the stew.

If your second backup is on commercial as well, you're fucked. You're going to end up going all over the place, potentially forgetting the channel number of your primary, or just forgetting about it all together, which is the most frustrating thing in the world next to the variety store not having your favourite gummies. This is when I like to give up and take a shower. Remember that episode the Seinfeld when Kramer decides to live in the shower because, in his words "this is where I want to be"? I can relate to that. I look forward to showers like a girl looks forward to her first bra. It's affords one the same privacy as sitting on the toilet, but is more therapeutic and less gross.