#62 - obviously funny.

since i'm in love with tv shows again, in return, i've decided to give them a valentine's day gift today, with a display of devotion beginning with the first of a month's long theme of snack blog entries, all with a tv-centric focus. what can i say? when's one of the best times to snack? when you're engrossed in your favorite tv show...or your favorite 20 tv shows, so for the next month, that's what i'm going to be up to...my v.d. gift that keeps on giving...a whole month of the gift of v.d., you might say.

i guess i had heard the name "demetri martin" in the past and i recognized his face. then i came across some ads for his new comedy central show, important things with demetri martin & then he showed up in my mailbox & bathroom on the cover of new york magazine & then i noticed a few friends had watched the show...thanks to facebook status updates! the greatest thing that has happened to this country since whatever it is we used to go to myspace for! spam? it was spam, right? that's why we went there?

i decided to watch last week's premiere episode of important things today. i'm a sucker for self-referential comedy & deadpan comedy or "smart" comedy & i love charts & diagrams and mr. demetri (communist name?) also loves that stuff. some of my favorite shows are sketch-based and made up of short comedy bits (the state, kids in the hall, pre-norm mcdonald snl) so i feel like i'm solidly in the target market for this show. this week's theme was "timing." it's funny most of the time & i'll definitely watch it next week. next week's theme is "power." luckily, comedy central tends to stick with shows like important things (see the sarah silverman program), so it'll hopefully have time to grow on people, since it's not typical comedy.

#62 - obviously funny.

snack: wonka tinglerz
drink: bawls guarana cherry

on 42nd street on friday afternoon on my walk back from picking up thai food & looking to get a drink to enjoy with it, i stopped in the 7-11 across from port authority & grabbed a mountain dew from the cooler & started toward the register when i was stopped in my tracks by a shiny purple bag of wonka tinglerz. they're simple to explain...pop rocks + chocolate = tinglerz. since willy has never steered me wrong, i grabbed a bag. these things are friggin wacky & fun & all but i can't help but feel like the pop rock tingliness is actually my teeth being eaten away at. that sort of freaks me out, but in a yummy, chocolaty way.

when i grabbed the tinglerz, i figured i should pair it with some beverage i'd never had before & make a blog out of it & when i checked the first cooler, i found my choice, a choice based on pure, blatantly obvious comedy...bawls guarana cherry. would you like some bawls with your tinglerz? yes, yes i would. i would also like it if you made my comedy simple & spoon-fed so that i can shut my brain off. it's just easier that way & i have a feeling that it might keep production costs down. anyway, i'll follow jay leno & whatever he does off a cliff like a lemming, as long as it keeps production costs down, especially if i've got bawls coursing through my veins.

plus, i like to live life on the edge. remember the urban legend about eating pop rocks with soda? as it went, by consuming both at the same time, you would totally explode. a big-ass energy drink is ten times more dangerous than that, right? it's a clear beverage & gives me the eeriely unsettling feeling illustrated through the comparison of bawls is to energy drink as grain alcohol is to alcohol, without having to drive to nh to get it. it's mostly odorless & tasteless & i have a feeling that when i'm finished with this can, i'm going to be TOTALLY AMP'D. bawls to the wall!

anyway, being amped on bawls & tinglerz is wicked funny...WAY funnier than this stupid snl episode. didn't i swear these snl bizznitchez off? i'm watching it for the jonas bros. that's it. & i won't watch the whole thing...so it's ok. obviously.

#61 - you so famous!

my first ever face-to-face meeting with a celebrity was in the early eighties, outside fenway park after a baltimore orioles-boston red sox game, when my father & i ran into hall-of-fame orioles pitcher jim palmer. my dad told me who he was & asked me if i'd like an autograph, but i declined, since i didn't want the autograph of the guy in the underwear ads.

for a long while after that the closest i think i came to celebrity was that one of my fraternity brothers is scarlett johansson's brother...but she was like 12 & in manny & lo at the time we were in college, so yeah...oh & also one night a friend & i followed fishbone into a party at tufts & drank their bottles of guinness.

...but ever since i moved to nyc back in 2001, i've had the opportunity to pseudo-brush elbows with a few celebrities here & there in my doings and through it, have developed a sense of celebrity that i assume is different than, say, some dude who has never left windham, nh and only sees celebrities on tv or in the national enquirer or on the internet, naked or non.

i've been in social situations with rob corddry (formerly of the daily show & currently of the hilarious wb online-only series, children's hospital) on two non-consecutive occasions. once was at iona, a bar in williamsburg. i approached him & asked "you know jon stewart, right?" he responded, "you could say that"...and we went on our ways. we also crossed paths at a shins concert at bowery ballroom, where he stood in front of me & between songs, enthusiastically screamed "play your good song!"

other than that, i've had a few other celebrity run-ins. i've been on a flight with corin tucker (of sleater kinney), been at parties & bars with heather graham (who is WAY too skinny) & tracy morgan (on a couch with some ninny), and met the dudes from ac/dc (something that rhymes with "inny"). turns out they all seem like normal enough people...go figure.

which leads me to the topic of michael phelps & the infamous doobie-smoking picture of him. i've been at parties where there have been people who are in bands or films or tv series & never have i once thought to myself "oh my god, i totally need to get a photo of that person doing something that will be construed as awful & will publicly humiliate them & cost them a lucrative sponsorship deal!" that is a sign of somebody who is obviously an ass with no sense of consequences exposing someone who assumes what he's doing, at that point, at a party among "friends," has no consequences. i guess that doesn't matter to kellogg's either way.

#61 - you so famous!
snack: ocean spray cranberry & chocolate craisins trail mix
drink: nestea pomegranate & passion fruit red tea

the kellogg company, out of battle creek, michigan, is the world's largest producer of cereal & had $12.8 billion in revenue in 2008. beyond that, i'll just say that seth meyers covered their actions in response to the photos of michael phelps hitting the bong pretty well. in the end, they're bigger than michael phelps (he's only worth $10 million at the most) & can toss him aside in favor of a cartoon jungle cat any day of the week.

only 1/12th as big as kellogg's & 100 times bigger than michael phelps is ocean spray, an agricultural co-op based out of massachusetts. they're the owners of the largest cranberry-processing facility in the world. both the co-op & the massachusetts thing automatically score points with me & they've also turned down a buyout offer from pepsico, which is rad. even they've had their own problems in the past though. i guess nobody's perfect.

right michael phelps? nobody's perfect? hey michael phelps, i bet you'd love this ocean spray cranberry & chocolate craisins trail mix that i'm eating right now. nuts & berries are good (craisins!), but the chocolate chips make it even gooder if you know what i mean, michael phelps. wink wink. mmm. i bet you could eat like 50 bags of these when you're "training."

since i'm in a reducing-soda intake phase right now, i'm having a bottle of nestea pomegranate & passion fruit red tea with the trail mix. nestea is a part of the coca-cola company, who, by comparison, makes anything evil that kellogg or ocean spray might do look like a girl scout selling you a box of samoas. the label on the bottle tries hard to be hip though. i have to give them that. you've gotta be hip when you're dealing with pomegranates. with phrases like "pure liquid awesomeness" and "(c)an it help you wrestle a wildebeest?" it's a pretty extreme label, just like the pomegranate, the current biggest blinged-out celebrity in the fruit kingdom. long live the pomegranate.

#60 - office hilarity.

seriously, if you don't enjoy the hilarity that is the office (us edition), you are a soulless, humorless, redcoat spaniard greycoat nazi communist terrorist. that's a scientific fact. watch nova or discovery channel. i don't have time to get into the specifics of it right now.

...so the office returned last week from winter hiatus with an hour-long episode entitled "stress relief" & i finally got to watch it yesterday & there are all kinds of awesome story lines in it & they should just give them the emmy right now for best comedy episode of the year. no competition, really. sorry tina fey, i know you probably have a lot of great episodes lined up (don draper!), but i assume you're a rational human being, so i'm sure you agree with my decision to give them the statue, even this early in the year. i love you & all (in a non-creepy way), but you already have a bunch already from this year's ceremonies anyhow.

if you, the reader, haven't seen the episode yet, i'm going to spoil a few of the awesome plot points for you right now:

opening sequence - dwight is the safety officer of the office & doesn't feel people have properly heeded his fire evacuation instructions, so he decides to make sure they learn. he starts a fire in a trash can in a side room and by locking & heating the handles of various doors, creates absolute chaos that results in such hilarity as oscar climbing into the drop ceiling, angela's cat crashing out of the drop ceiling, people using the copier as a battering ram & michael throwing a chair through a window before dwight informs them it is just a drill & stanley has a heart attack...roll opening credits.

the cpr training - michael convinces corporate to not fire dwight & to prepare for future emergencies, he sets up a cpr training at the office, where they practice on a dummy. kevin gives up after 20 seconds, declaring "call it." the cpr instructor tells michael to perform pumps to the chest of the dummy to the tune of "stayin' alive." after michael mistakenly starts pumping to the opening lyrics of gloria gaynor's "i will survive," everyone gets into "stayin' alive" with much dancing & singing, including a moment where kelly gets to show off her dance skills. the training ends with dwight cutting open the dummy to harvest the organs (after the instructor claims they lost the patient during all the dancing) & then cutting off the face & wearing it ala hannibal lecter.

the roast - michael again convinces corporate to not fire dwight & soon after realizes that he is the source of stanley's (& many others') stress. to alleviate tension around the office, michael arranges a roast of himself down in the warehouse & he urges everyone to let loose on him, since "anything goes" in a roast. as a result, the roast gets really nasty, including a line declaring that if his penis "were an ipod it would be a shuffle" & a song by andy called "what i hate about you." at the end, michael stumbles off the stage & walks off behind a shelf, leaving all the cast captured in one full shot, sitting silent in the warehouse.

michael's ending counter-roast - after calling out of work the next day & after much soul-searching (including a hilarious scene feeding the pigeons in the park), michael returns to the office wearing a turtleneck & carrying a stack of note cards. with everyones' attention he starts..."jim, you're 6'11" and you weigh 90 pounds. gumby has a better body than you. boom. roasted."...& he carries on, roasting everyone in the office, ending with "boom. roasted" each time. halfway through, when he gets to stanley & says "you crush your wife when you have sex & your heart sucks. boom. roasted," stanley begins laughing & his laughter continues to grow & spread, completely shifting the tone of the entire scene as he does so. it's hilariously brilliant & is responsible for my new catch phrase. check it..."hey reader. you smell funny & have no taste in shoes. boom. roasted."

the pam & jim stories - there's pam's parents getting divorced (which OBVIOUSLY leads to jim being all dimply boyfriend good). there's andy learning about love through watching (with jim & pam) an illegally downloaded copy of mrs. albert hannaday (a fake movie made just for this episode), starring jack black, jessica alba & cloris leachman (featuring the best scene with a stairlift since gremlins). sometimes jim & pam make me want to throw up in my own mouth.

what continues to astound me most about the office is that its format & direction, with the confessionals & caught facial expressions, give each character multiple opportunities to shine in each episode. in particular, in this episode, there are situations like the fire scene & the roast scene & the counter-roast scene where absolutely everyone is a part of the scene & contributes to the overall mood. i mean, in my recap, i've named almost every character & always for a hilarious reason. anyway, i eat that ensemble crap up.

#60 - office hilarity.
snack: harry & david bing cherry dark chocolates
drink: archer farms orange passion mango italian soda

[segue] ...speaking of eating things, while i watched, i feasted on some harry & david bing cherry dark chocolates. according to the packaging, harry & david/bear creek orchards, a medford, oregon based company, has been around since 1934. that's pretty cool. they seem to have a pretty good story going for them, one that started during the great depression, when two brothers traveled to nyc with boxes of pears & by the time they had left, they'd made pear-giving fashionable among nyc executives...how quaint...& much nicer & wallet-sucking than that cocaine trend.

it turns out that the beavers of harry & david's home state are celebrating the state's "sesquicentennial" this coming valentine's day. i wonder if my oregon friends are celebrating with some bull riding or a cappuccino. or a covered wagon! i wish i could go play actual oregon trail with my pals on v.d.! oregon is so far! [frowny face].

...but holy friggin bing cherries. seriously. if i had no "off" switch (& it's slightly busted as it is), this package wouldn't last more than ten minutes. the package warns that they "may contain pits," so it's probably best that i take it slow anyhow, to avoid choking & dying & whatnot. that'd be the pits.

& since i'm all up on target's jock recently, i'm pounding a bottle of archer farms orange passion mango italian soda along with the bings. mamma mia! it's 12% juice, which is actually more juice than i often get, so i guess that's a good thing. the oranges & mangoes are really yummy no-brainer fruits. as for the passion fruit, i have no passion for it. alanis morrisette should have sang about junk like that...would've made more sense...silly canadian.

#59 - the beautiful people.

a glimpse into the life of some people who are totally beautiful (on the outside, of course/at least):

rod blagojevich - so the former governor of illinois was on letterman tuesday night. that man's swooping helmet bangs are sooooooo astounding & slightly unreal & toupeeish. at one point in the interview, letterman asked him, "do you use shampoo & conditioner?" i think the answer is obvious. daily, his hair is bathed in milk & vegetable extracts & crushed olives or something before being hand-picked by a female gorilla. he's been all "i'm innocent. i'm innocent. i'm innocent" lately. i'd swear that he & roger clemens have the same pr firm, but i can't seem to find his name on the hendricks sports' management's web site...i did, however, come across this report they did that analyzes the greatness of roger clemens' career...at rogerclemensreport.com. beautiful. i was going to write something funny about the report, but that'd mean i'd have to read it first. so anyway, blago, with his beauty hair, it sucks that he's lost the governorship & i get that he wants to clear his name & not have his kids hate him (i've seen the first season of damages), but that man needs to give it a rest prontolike.

rose byrne - speaking of damages, i mean wow. rose byrne is BEAUTIFUL. AUSTRALIAN BEAUTIFUL. i've already hollywood-crush fallen for robin tunney & thora birch & zooey deschanel (& now that i think about it, alexis bledel on some level) & i put them all in the same genus amazicus black-haired ladius as ms byrne, so it only makes sense that she's my current hollywood crush. it helps that her character on damages is all smart & take-charge & sexy & damaged but trying to hide it at the same time...i'm pretty sure these traits make up my perfect female.

the people on beautifulpeople.net - obviously, if you're a beautiful person looking to meet other beautiful people so that you can breed & create your wholly-attractive master race, you should visit the official social networking site of beautiful people. judging by the photos on the site, beautiful people are pretty much white (or asian females), so keep that in mind when you decide to submit your photo to the beautiful people community & have them vote on whether or not you are beautiful enough to become a member...it also helps if you own a tanning salon and/or are unclear on the whereabouts of your shirt. fyi, the site's only supported in internet explorer (obviously), so we now know what browser the beautiful people prefer.

#59 - the beautiful people.
snack: dark chocolate chex mix
drink: archer farms beauty fortified pear lychee water beverage

so as i noted previously, moms always used to treat us to awesome chocolate homemade chex mix, so i love the fact that chex has started making their own mixes (both sweet & salty) and bagging them up (although i suppose they effectively muscled out my mom, which sucks). i'm pretty sure the dark chocolate chex mix is my favorite thus far. it's got m&m-like thingies and chocolate cookies & chocolate-covered pretzels & both white and dark chocolate chex. with a lineup like that, the chex themselves definitely aren't the first thing i reach for in the bag, but even they're good. this particular chex mix has "50% less fat than regular potato chips," which is definitely helpful if i want to be beautiful...& i obviously do.

in case the chex mix doesn't make me beautiful, i'm also drinking archer farms beauty fortified pear lychee water beverage. on the label, there's a mention of "beauty coming from within." i'm not sure why they're even going there since as we all know, the only important beauty in life is the outer beauty. inner beauty is fine for helping out the non outer-beautiful people, but ultimately outer beauty trumps that. i feel beautiful already. after drinking this beverage (& afterwards sufficiently brushing my teeth), i can tell you that this beauty-fortified drink is super sweet...& i don't mean that in a cool, napoleon dynamite slang sort of way, either. fist-bump beautiful people! you saw that movie! you have the vote for pedro shirt!...that is, you did before you puked on it down the shore.

good day. stay beautiful.

#58 - i touch myself.

so both my personal & work computers are currently deader than pushing daisies (i killed em both good!) & it's a lazy lame friday night in shawnland & ooh the blog urges, so i'm doing it. i'm blogging entirely from my ipod touch.

it's like twitter to the fifty gazillionth degree! jack dorsey is going to be so proud of my tiny handheld device writing abilities when he hears about my skillz...although he'll likely frown upon my excessive use of characters. here you are jack dorsey:

i find that 140 characters is an insultingly insufficient & stifling amount of characters in which to try to develop a full, coherent tho...

i'm friggin' obsessed with my ipod touch. it's like a mini-computer & it's about as jetson as i've ever been. if you're a close friend somewhere else other than nyc & want to talk about the weather, that's cool with me. i embrace that thought, as i likely have your city stored in the weather app on my ipod touch & know about your blustery winds.

don't want to talk about the weather? let's talk about my ipod touch then. my ipod touch has a facebook app & a myspace app on it, which means i'm now stalking you on the go & probably listening to fresh air as i do so.

i love my ipod touch. ipod touch. ipod touch. ipod touch.

#58 - i touch myself.
snack: cold mcdonalds french fries with sweet & sour sauce
drink: allagash white ale

earlier tonight, i got lazy & got mcdonalds for dinner & after inhaling the ranch bacon chicken sandwich, i had to wait on the fries to avoid stomach explosion. two hours later, i've returned to the fries with a tub of sweet & sour sauce. much of the time, i could be eating cardboard, as long as it's slathered in sweet & sour sauce, so cold mcdonalds french fries are more than sufficient as a delivery mechanism for the sauce.

& i'm washing these cold fries down with an allagash white ale. i think it's safe to say that the allagash white, from portland, maine, is my favorite white beer. it's made with all sorts of yummy spices & i'd take it over blue moon any day of the week.

hey! did you hear about my ipod touch? if i want, i can get all kinds of stupid apps for it. there's one app called "sound grenade" that "generates a really, really annoying, nauseating and headache producing high pitched sound." there's another called "fart for free," which allows you to "disgust your girlfriend" or "reminisce on past farts." both sound extremely useful.

ooh! you know what's the best part about my ipod touch? with the stellar economy, when i find myself looking for work, i'll be ready to kick ass on those touch screen registers at mcdonalds. i'll be like the tiger woods of those things. minimum wage & high school companions here i come!

sent from my ipod touch