#72 - sexy sexed up brits.

by far, my favorite british tv show is monty python's flying circus. my current sense of humor owes a lot to repeated monty python viewings as a teenager. beyond that, my knowledge of british television doesn't really extend beyond dr who, benny hill & the millions of british shows that have been remade here in the u.s.

over in the u.k., their tv programs don't have "seasons." instead, they have "series," which is wicked classy...& the programs are actually "programmes." the comedy two pints of lager & a packet of crisps, which airs on bbc three, just started its eighth series last week. i hadn't seen anything from the first seven series, but since eight series is a lot for a british show, the other night, i went ahead & checked out the series eight premiere.

though it was funny enough, i had a hard time figuring out what was going on, partially due to the lack of knowledge behind the first seven series, but mostly because the series eight premiere also features members of two other british comedies that i've also never seen--coming of age & grownups.

i got that there are now four main characters--gaz, janet, donna & louise. i got that everyone is totally sexed up & full of whitty double-entendres. also, i got that there's a closeted but super gay bar owner named tim at the bar they always hang at. he rules.

but still, i was confused...so i went back tonight & watched series seven. the first episode was broadcast live & in it, the fifth main character from the first six series, jonny (janet's husband), is away in hawaii, as he won a competition & is going shark-jumping. by the end of the episode, janet learns that jonny has been eaten by a shark.

throughout the season's eight episodes, louise gets preggers and donna & gaz get married. by the final episode, donna & gaz have broken it off, janet & gaz have fallen in love & louise has given birth to a girl. through it all, there's all sorts of sexy fun talk, all in sexy british accents...not bad overall.

#72 - sexy sexed up brits.
snack: walker's worcester sauce potato crisps / walker's thai sweet chilli crisps
drink: yuengling lager / stella artois

when i first watched the series eight premiere, i settled down with an american-made yuengling lager & a packet of walker's worcester sauce potato crisps. when i went back to watch series seven today, i treated myself to a stella artois & a packet of walker's thai sweet chilli crisps.

walker's is a u.k. snack food manufacturer that was founded back in the 1880s, but is now owned by frito-lay (pepsico), which explains the logo's similarity to that of lay's potato chips. since the front of the package says "it's back!" i guess that the worcester sauce flavour went away for a while.

at first, i wasn't sure if these would taste like the streets of that lovely city in central massachusetts, but in the end, i liked the flavour. it had a slight, not-too-overpowering mustard & worcestershire sauce taste. still, the second bag of walker's, the thai sweet chilli flavour, was definitely the better of the two flavours. the chips were abnormally round but covered with tasty lil red & green thai spices. i downed the bag pretty quickly.

as to the lagers, both are pretty much just your run-of-the-mill beers. the first, the yuengling, is from a pennsylvania company that has been around since friggin' forever (1829). although the taste isn't anything special, i definitely prefer a yuengling to a bud or a coors light any day of the week, since it at least has some flavor & is somewhat in the same price range as those aforementioned crap beers.

the stella artois almost didn't make it into this entry. originally, i bought a can of old speckled hen ale, since it's all british & whatnot, but as it turned out, i was watching two pints... and gaz was drinking a can of stella (has anyone else ever seen one of these?). coincidentally, a friend of mine left a six-pack of stella bottles in my fridge last night, so the old speckled hen totally got bumped. c'est la vie.

anyway, in my book, beerwise, the stella's on the same page as the yuengling--cheap enough & better-tasting than a bud. also, stella has been around for a long time too...since 1926. all told, while watching two pints... i had 1.45 pints of lager & two packets of crisps, which is close enough to the show's title when you add it all up.

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#71 - the ring.

damn! double damn! south park is old! i used to be a huge fan of it, watched it all the time, even had an oversized cartman key chain hanging off my backpack at one point...then i got on with my life. i haven't watched it in forever, but this wednesday night was the lucky 13th season premiere, so i decided to check back on thursday night & see what's going on in the world of south park, co.

this week's episode begins with the boys in the lunch room, staring at kenny (not dead) sitting with his new fifth-grade girlfriend, tammy, the only girl in school poorer than him. the rumor is that she gave some boy a bj in the t.g.i.fridays parking lot. when the boys break it to kenny, he cheers & runs down the hallway to confront tammy. she confesses that the rumor is true, but only happened because she saw the jonas brothers (jo bros) on the disney channel & got all tingly...cut to kenny buying two tickets to the upcoming jo bros concert at denver's pepsi center.

the boys are disgusted at kenny's plan. cartman warns him that, "statistically speaking, the most bacteria-ridden place on the planet is the mouth of an american woman." so true. kenny & tammy go to the jo bros concert & there are tons of little girls freaking out to lyrics like "i'm ready to get it on, but there's no getting it on til i'm ready." after the show, tammy gets asked backstage with a group of girls & security gives kenny the boot. the end result...the jo bros get the girls (& kenny, by default) to wear purity rings ("the hip new way to roll").

it's a trying time for kenny & the guys see how lame he's becoming as he starts hanging out with other purity ring couples. he even starts watching greys anatomy.

at the same time, the jo bros are getting fed up with the purity rings getting in the way of their "music." after shooting a video, they storm off the set & are eventually confronted by the boss...mickey mouse.

mickey is pissed. the purity rings are important, because it's the only way disney can sell sex to little girls. when joe jonas tries to keep pushing the purity ring issue, mickey kicks him in the junk & beats him to the ground. later on, the jo bros are on "good morning denver," promoting their next show, at red rocks, where they will be "dousing girls with white foam." the boys show up & cartman interrupts the jo bros, until the boys are all shot by blowgun darts from mickey, paranoid that dreamworks & michael eisner are trying to ruin everything.

the boys wake up backstage & after mickey loses it, he accidentally announces, to the horror of the crowd, his plan for selling sex to little girls, whilst calling christians "retarded." when people disapprove, the whole promise ring scam collapses & mickey grows into a fire-breathing, float-sized giant who terrorizes the city.

in the end, kenny & tammy decide not to wear the purity rings...& kenny gets syphillis & dies for the first time since season 11, proving that sex is obviously wrong.

#71 - the ring.

snack: chocolove cherries & almonds in dark chocolate
drink: avery brewing co karma ale

since i was worried about offending south park creators trey parker & matt stone & subsequently having my junk booted or city terrorized because i didn't have a proper theme, i specifically decided to have a snack & drink both from colorado tonight. a colorado beer was easy enough to find, but i probably freaked out a few store owners as i flipped over snack package after snack package in an attempt to identify the manufacturer's home state, eventually, i found the chocolove cherries & almonds in dark chocolate bar, made by a company in boulder.

i really enjoyed the taste of the cherry chocolove bar, even though the cherry taste wasn't very prominent. the dark chocolate was tasty enough & the almonds & slight cherry tastes here & there (rather than having big cherry chunks in the bar) made for some tasty chocolate consumption. plus, their wrappers contain verses from love poems. the one i got was from i love thee, by eliza acton (a poet & cook from the 1800s):

i love thee, as i love the calm
of sweet, star-lighted hours!
i love thee, as i love the balm
of early jes'mine flowers

...what a lovely, heartfelt chocolate bar.

to keep the colorado love going, i had an avery brewing co karma ale along with my chocolate & south park viewing. it's also made by a company out of boulder. to be honest, there isn't really anything special about this ale other than its implied ability to dispense karma. i'm even skeptical of that though, since we all know that karma must be inherited through our own actions.

let's end with a quick discussion about karma. for starters, we know that the instant kind is gonna getchoo. it'll knock you right on the head. we also know that if you talk in maths or have a hitler hairdo, thom yorke will suggest that the karma police come arrest you. a little known fact...musical superjoke the black eyed peas were once a pretty good group & once believed in karma, way back in the late 90s...then they let fergie into the group, pretty much guaranteeing a lifetime of negative karma for those fools..."ain't no running from karma"...sho nuf, will.i.am.

#70 - rise & shine, america...& get naked!

on monday morning before work, i woke up early to watch the previous night's second season premiere of amc's breaking bad, which is, if not my favorite currently-running show, is definitely in my top three. i might even go as far as to say that it's better than that other, advertising-themed amc show.

the quick lowdown plotwise: bryan cranston plays walt, a former high school chemistry teacher who has been diagnosed with cancer & decides he needs to make a ton of money for his family as quick as possible, so he partners up with one of his former students & starts cooking & selling crystal meth. he totally won an emmy award for best actor in a drama for the first season.

the first season started with quite possibly the craziest pilot episode ever and after seven episodes, ended with walt & his partner, jesse pinkman, selling a bunch of blue-colored crystal meth to tuco, a loco drug dealer from juarez. after tuco tests out the meth himself, he loves it & tells them that they will bring him the same amount every week in exchange for $70K...& then he proceeds to beat one of his two associates to death with his bare hands as walt & jesse stand there in shock. then his other associate grabs the beaten associate's limp body & drags him into the truck before he & tuco drive away & the season ends.

[EEK SPOILERS!!!] the second season opened with a black & white scene of walt's backyard. after a few establishing shots of the empty yard, the camera sets on the pool & an eyeball floats onto the screen. sirens start to blare in the background as the eyeball floats through the pool & gets sucked into the drain. as the camera pans to the bottom of the pool, we see a bright pink bear floating beneath the water. as the camera follows it, we see that it is missing an eyeball & one whole side of it is charred. sirens continue to blare in the distance & screen goes to the title sequence. wha!!!???

the next scene is the last one from the first season--the drug deal with tuco. as the episode continues, we see walt try to force sex on his pregnant wife, jesse freaked out that tuco is going to kill them any day now, walt deciding they should make ricin to kill tuco before he kills them, walt's brother-in-law (a DEA agent) trying to bond with him by sending him a phone pic of a dead guy from a crime scene (& it just happens to be tuco's other associate). walt figures that they're next, tells jesse to flee town & starts to panic himself.

the episode ends with walt sitting on the edge of the bathtub & on the edge of tears while his wife takes a bubble bath. just as he is about to break down & reveal to her everything that's happening with him, jesse calls walt's cell phone & then pulls up in front of walt's house in his car. walt runs out to the car, leans on the window & asks jesse "what the hell are you doing here?" tuco pops up in the back seat with a gun in his hand & urges walt to get in. walt has no choice, so he does....& they drive away, ending the episode. it's quality television. i want it to be next week right now!

#70 - rise & shine, america...& get naked!

snack: bear naked all natural fruit & nut granola
drink: naked orange mango motion juice smoothie

i did a little snacking that monday morning with a bag of bear naked all natural fruit & nut granola. i picked the bag up about a month ago. by that, i mean that someone in my building received it as a sample, tore open the box to see what it was & left it there on the floor below our mailboxes, still inside its packaging. i picked it up off the ground & relocated it to my kitchen cupboard until this monday, when i again relocated the contents, this time to my mouth whilst watching breaking bad. on the back of the package, it urges me to "try with milk, yogurt or just bear naked." it was early in the morning & i had no milk or yogurt & totally read it wrong. turns out i could've kept my clothes on whilst eating my granola after all.

other than a fleeting love affair with mueslix back in the 90s, i've never been the biggest fan of granola-based things. occasionally, i'll buy some yogurt with one of those packets of granola on top, but other than that, nada. too dry. this bear naked fruit & nut granola, with its raisins & cranberries, isn't as dry as some granolas i've had though, but i probably should have heeded their advice & mixed it in with something liquidy.

as it was, i at least had the naked orange mango motion juice smoothie to drink along with it. on the label of this drink, it lets me know that they "understand [my] need to get naked." never in my life have my food & drink combined their efforts so skillfully in an attempt to get me to take my clothes off.

i don't usually buy these smoothie drinks since they're so damn expensive, but i went for it with this one. it's definitely tasty stuff & by the time breaking bad was over, i had some solid energy coursing through me from the granola & smoothie consumption, which just goes to prove that you don't need crystal meth to get your day going. john & carol tate of massillon, oh...i'm totally looking in your direction.

#69 - somebody please shoot me in the face.

oh snap! have you guys seen fox's show hole in the wall? it is a remake of the japanese show brain wall & it has been adapted all over the world & it is totally off the chain! hole in the wall brings the people of the world together!

in this u.s. version, teams of three, in various combinations & configurations, stand on a platform & then a wall is revealed with a section cut out of it & then it starts moving toward them & they have to line their bodies up so they don't break the wall or get pushed into a pool of green liquid, which i'm 90% sure is mountain dew. it's really dramatic! tonight's teams are "female gymnasts vs male acrobats" and "surfer boys vs surfer girls."

check out this scoring system. please try to keep up. the first round is a one-player wall. if you don't break it or fall into the dew, you get one point. round two is a two-player wall. it is worth two points. the third round features a three-player wall. it is worth three points. this is where the scoring gets tricky. after that, there is a bonus, catch-up round with a three-person double-speed wall. each person who makes it through the wall gets two points. then there is the bonus round for the winning team.

it's hosted by l.a. weather anchor mark thompson, who speaks to the people from high above on a balcony & brooke burns, who is apparently there to act pretty & interview the contestants with stupid questions. TOTALLY AWESOME stupid questions! wooooooo!

there's much use of the phrase "it's time to face the hole" in this show. also, in case you're tracking your vegas bets, tonight's two winning teams were the "handspring hotties" and the "beach bunnies." the beach bunnies even cleared the bonus wall, so they get $125K. then they all jumped in the pool of mountain dew to get wet & celebrate. go feminism.

#69 - somebody please shoot me in the face.
snack: frey tiramisu chocolate bar
drink: long trail brewmaster series coffee stout

i sure do have a thing for the swiss recently, even though they don't have a version of brain wall gracing their airwaves. tonight, i'm trying out the swiss-made, target-exclusive frey tiramisu chocolate bar while i watch fox's u.s. version of the most einsteinien game show ever invented.

i guess this tiramisu bar is about as close as you can get, in chocolate bar form, to a piece of tiramisu, so that's good. it has marscapone powder in it & that's totally the powder of the cheese that you use when making tiramisu. authentic! also, like with tiramisu, after you have eaten a few pieces, you feel so full that chances are that you won't be able to down another damn thing...well, maybe except for a cappucino or something.

since i don't have no stinkin' cappucino, a long trail brewmaster series coffee stout will have to do, i suppose. long trail is a vermont brewery & this beer comes in a 22 oz bottle that costs 11¢ less than the 12 oz canned stout i had just the other night. it's pretty much your standard coffee stout, with a dark complexion & a burnt, coffee-like taste. it goes really well with the tiramisu chocolate bar. flavorwise, they totally blend in mouth for good yum taste in mouth.

in conclusion, hole in the wall is a thinking man's game show. think jeopardy on steroids. NOT!!! [wayne's world reference]. next up on fox after hole in the wall: the simpsons! that's still a thinking man's show, right? [wayne's world reference].

#68 - what the @%#& are you worth?

seriously. this blog entry is gonna @%#& rock. you know why it's gonna @%#& rock? it's gonna @%#& rock because i, shawn parow, fully embrace the kenny powers method & if there's one thing that kenny powers isn't, it's a @%#& pussy & when you embrace the kenny powers method, you can move mountains, mother@%#& and that's what this blog entry is gonna do. it's gonna move mother@%#& mountains & i'm gonna prove my worth, blogwise to all you envious mother@%#&s.

hbo's new comedy series, eastbound & down, stars danny mcbride (recently in pineapple express) as kenny powers, a former major league baseball pitcher who rose to fame on the back of his blazing fastball. the show is now three episodes into its first season & the series opened with a montage depicting the downfall of kenny powers' baseball career. the montage includes a few john rockerlike moments & includes a great clip of kenny with the red sox, attacking a cameraman while screaming "i'm not on steroids!" it's funny because everyone knows that red sox don't use steroids.

...so his career ends & he hits rock bottom & moves in back home with his brother and his brother's wife & three kids & takes a job as the p.e. coach at the middle school. he struggles with his fall from grace & determining his worth. hilarity ensues.

the title sequence for each episode starts with a freeze frame at the end of a totally @%#& awesome kenny powers moment--kenny punching a guy out (ep.1), kenny urging a girl to wear a dental dam because "you don't know what @%#& i've got either" (ep. 2) & kenny running away from a car crash, leaving his assistant with the words "i'm gonna split cause i got priors. see you at school" (ep. 3).

overall, the series has a @%#&-ton of hilarious, swear-filled kenny powers-delivered lines. even his "assistant" (the band teacher) gets into the game:

"you're @%#&ing out!" - kenny powers' catch phrase

"you named your kid after @%#&ing titanic? [points to nephew] what's his name, @%#&ing shrek?" - to his sister-in-law, who named their daughter "rose"

"let me get this straight...i'm gonna pay for a blowjob and i gotta pay for a hotel room? i got a house. you could just come to the house and do the blowjob here...can i wear the scream mask when i do you from behind?" - on the phone to an escort service, while his sister-in-law cleans up around him

"you can smoke a @%#&ing peace pipe til your @%#& falls off but i'm not dancing with wolves no matter how high i get." - from a kenny powers "i'm @%#&ing in, you're @%#&ing out" motivational tape

"this one coach tried to put me on a weight training program and i was all, 'you and your weights can @%#& off somewhere. i ain't lifting that @%#&. it's heavy.'" - also from a kenny powers "i'm @%#&ing in, you're @%#&ing out" motivational tape

"watch it, ass blood." - kenny's assistant, bumping into a college scout they just had a confrontation with

as you can see, it's often a hilarious show...swear-filled hilarious...but it's ok that it's swear-filled, because kenny powers is a @%#&ing champion...& it's hbo.

#68 - what the @%#& are you worth?
snack: 100 grand with coconut
drink: ten fidy imperial stout

i am a @%#& high rolling, ballin' mother@%#&, bitches. here is how much this blog entry is worth:

snack = $100,000.00
drink = $4.50
total - $100,004.50

while watching eastbound & down, i had myself the most expensive candy bar in the whole @%#& world, the 100 grand with coconut. nestle was all "as it is, you american @%#&s probably don't deserve our swiss, regular, everyday 100 grand bar, packed with chocolate, caramel & crisped rice, but since we're a mother@%#&'n multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation & you hide so much money in our banks, we're ok with giving you 100 grand bars & we're also ok with giving you coconut, which you @%#& americans, for some reason, insist on having in your candy bars. you're welcome. now if you don't mind, we have to go discourage third world mothers from breastfeeding now." then they twirl their well-groomed moustaches.

multinational corporation formula agendas aside, the 100 grand with coconut is pretty damn good. while mounds, with its dark chocolate, is a solid coconut candy bar, the 100 grand with coconut benefits from having rice crisps & caramel. they blend well together & the caramel prevents the coconut from being too overpowering...plus, i feel like the airiness of the rice crisps helps enhance the flavor. overall, it's fine swiss engineering.

the chocolate flavor also blended well with my drink for the evening, the ten fidy imperial stout. it's a canned beer (ala kenny powers' drink receptacle of choice...easier to toss out the window while driving) made by the oskar blues brewery out of colorado. american engineering!

i'd picked up the beer at a local park slope gourmet foods place, grab, without really looking at the price sticker on the side of the can, so immediately after purchasing, i definitely felt the same sort of guilt you'd get after paying for a $4 pbr at some stupid lower east side bar.

luckily, unlike a pbr, this beer was @%#&ing worth the $4.50. just under the rim of the top of the can are the words "cross-eyed. cyclopean. cancupiscent." i looked up that there last word & it's a playful twist on "concupiscent," meaning this beer is lustful. it has a thick, black color that looked sweet in a glass and had a chocolaty/burnt/coffee taste that was worth both sipping & gulping...and when i was done, i crushed the can on my forehead & @%#&ing hurled that thing at the wall...& came in at 56 mph on the radar gun...looks like somebody's still @%#&ing got it.