Category Archives: Uncategorized

This season of Six Feet Under certainly seems to have dropped a notch or two from the incredible quality of writing of its first three seasons.
This post isn’t about that. This post is about incredible acting.

I really enjoy small acting moments. A movie, play, whatever, can be not so good, and I can come away happy if there are a couple of great acting moments in it.

Last night’s Six Feet Under (which was a pretty good episode, actually) had such a moment. It was a scene, probably 20 seconds only, without dialogue. Without giving away this season’s plots (I know some readers are watching previous seasons on DVD and would rather remain in the dark about this season), I’ll just say it’s a scene between David and Nate. David is standing at attention, at yet another funeral. Nate comes down the stairs and simply stands beside David. The range of emotions that David goes through in about 10 seconds is simply wonderful. Nate smiles in recognition of David’s response. That’s it. That’s the scene.

If I was to compile my favourite film/video moments, that’d be on it.

Another moment that would be on it comes from Sketch 22. In one of the video segments there is a moment when a crashing noise occurs, and Josh Weale performs what I consider to be a perfect double take.

Well done, Michael C. Hall, Peter Krause, and Josh Weale.

It is a week away from pre-season training camp for NFL teams. Those of you who have been reading this place for a while will know that I am a Miami Dolphins fan.
You may also know that I literally can’t wait for the NFL season to start. It is really the only sport I have a true passion for. The Dolphins are the only sports team I have a true passion for.

This has not been a good off-season for the Dolphins. Still, as always, I was full of hope. It is my duty as a fan to be full of hope. Why was it a difficult off-season?
Well, the Dolphins needed to address their largest weakness, which was their ineffective offensive line. They didn’t do that. Instead, they have a bunch of rookies who will likely get eaten up (Still, being an optimistic fan, I hoped that they’d all surprise us and perform to an acceptable level). They tried to find a General Manager, and failed (no problem says optimistic fan). They brought in Dan Marino, Miami hero and icon, to be President of the team. He quit a week later (odd, thought Optimistic fan. Odd, but not too damaging). Their beloved Offensive Coordinator, Norv Turner, left to a plum college head coach job (could hurt, but let’s give the next guy a chance). The guy that replaced him quit about a month and a half later after suffering from exhaustion. (okay, this is getting weird thinks Optimistic Fan). The current OC is a babe in the woods, this being his first opportunity with the position. The Dolphins have an adequate quarterback in Jay Fiedler, but all agree an upgrade was essential. They went and got another team’s third string qb, AJ Feely (at too high a cost, may feel) to compete for the starting position. (Just watch. He’ll prove to be a shining star who was never given a fair chance. This is his chance). Currently, a week out of training camp, it seems Feely isn’t up to competing against the incumbent adequate qb (there’s still hope, says I). A couple of the Dolphin’s players were arrested/charged with crimes, one of which involved a player assaulting his pregnant wife (it should be noted that she was also charged with assaulting him, I think) (okay, this happens all the time in the NFL, so no big deal, as far as snuffing out the flames of hope).

Even after all that, a truly awful, chaotic off-season, I had hope for the season. This would be the year, I thought, that expectations on/from the Dolphins would be lower, and the team would rise above it all and be the surprise of the season.

I believed that, firstly because I am an optimistic fan, and secondly, because the Dolphins have Ricky Williams. Without question, Ricky Williams is the star of the team. The running back, around which the entire team has been built. Just adequate qb? No problem, hand it off to Ricky. Rookie OC? No problem, just hand it off to Ricky.
Ricky Williams is such a great player that other teams are forced to defend against him specifically, otherwise he’ll eat them up. Ricky Williams is an elite running back in a game of elite running backs. Ricky Williams has the ability to set new records for rushing in a game and in a season. Ricky Williams is All That.

Most importantly, Ricky Williams will win us (the Dolphins and their fans) games this year. Even after a horrible off-season, I’ve been looking at perhaps 11 wins this season.

All hope is pinned on Ricky Williams. I am such a fan of the Dolphins, and such a fan of the potential of what Ricky Williams can do for this team, that, when he joined the team two years ago, I actually bought a McFarlane figurine of Ricky Williams. Yes, Ricky Williams is important enough to me that I bought a doll of him. And I love the doll.

Today, I discover, Ricky Williams has suddenly decided to retire. At the age of 27. In the prime of his game. A week before training camp starts. Leaving the Dolphins without any valid offensive weaponry. They are sunk.

I am hope-broken. I’ll not be getting NFL Sunday Ticket this year, just to watch the Dolphins lose 12 to 14 of 16 games this season.

It is a sad, sad, sad football day for me.

If God wanted to truly test Job, he should’ve pulled this stunt on him.

One of my favourite PEI blogs to read is Frankie‘s. I find her observations to be funny, quirky and unexpected. From her remarks regarding this blog, seems she’s a fan of this place as well.

Until last night, our mutual appreciation club had never met. Last night, however, Frankie introduced herself to me after coming to see Sketch 22.

I had some preconceptions as to what she looks like. These notions were somewhat solidified when I asked Cynthia to describe her. Cynthia had met her when Frankie became involved in Cyn’s The Vagina Monologues last year.

So, anyway, I had a vague mental picture as to what I imagined Frankie to look like. I imagined her to be a cool, kinda subtly-hip looking mom. Turns out she is pretty much that, only not so mom-ish.

Then I started to wonder what she was expecting of me, and I immediately, horrifyingly thought of one particular image of me last night on stage…traipsing around on stage wearing nothing but black socks and a black velvet diaper, pale-white belly jutting out, leading me wherever I went.

Frankie, whatever you were expecting, you probably weren’t expecting that.

sigh

Had the incomparable fish and chips (breaded, with crispy crispy fries) at Cedars today. And you know, it tastes even better when you are merely a couple of hours away from a two-week vacation.

Yes, I’m on vacation for two weeks. I’ll be hanging around, close to home. My goal is to get as much beach experience in as possible. I’ve not been a beach bum for quite a number of years, but I think I’m ready to give that a go. I hope my milk-white body doesn’t totally revolt.

One of my favourite PEI blogs to read is Frankie‘s. I find her observations to be funny, quirky and unexpected. From her remarks regarding this blog, seems she’s a fan of this place as well.

Until last night, our mutual appreciation club had never met. Last night, however, Frankie introduced herself to me after coming to see Sketch 22.

I had some preconceptions as to what she looks like. These notions were somewhat solidified when I asked Cynthia to describe her. Cynthia had met her when Frankie became involved in Cyn’s The Vagina Monologues last year.

So, anyway, I had a vague mental picture as to what I imagined Frankie to look like. I imagined her to be a cool, kinda subtly-hip looking mom. Turns out she is pretty much that, only not so mom-ish.

Then I started to wonder what she was expecting of me, and I immediately, horrifyingly thought of one particular image of me last night on stage…traipsing around on stage wearing nothing but black socks and a black velvet diaper, pale-white belly jutting out, leading me wherever I went.

Frankie, whatever you were expecting, you probably weren’t expecting that.

sigh

There’s a title that’ll guarantee some disappointed google searchers when they stop by.

One of my greatest failings, I think, is my inability to self-promote. There are many reasons for why I resist talking up my ‘artistic’ pursuits. Chief among them lies in the adage ‘do unto others what you would want others to do unto you’ (or whatever it is). Basically, I don’t like it when people aggressively promote themselves, so I tend not to promote my self at all. I find it too… desperate. I understand the need for self-promotion, but I seem to rail against it, to the point where I probably hinder the potential success of projects in which I am involved.

In other words, I am so scared of becoming a media/promotional whore that I go too far in the other direction.

Also, (even though this will likely come across as immodest) I think I am modest, to a fault. I enjoy receiving praise for my work, but I go to great lengths not to pull praise out of people. Again, probably at a detriment to my potential success.

With all that in mind, I feel compelled, however, to promote Sketch 22. It really is a very funny show.

See? Almost 200 words of justification and preamble just so I can be comfortable enough to say “It really is a very funny show” and not feel like I’m a cheap theatre-hooker.

And still, I feel like a cheap theatre-whore.

That’s a hard ‘g’, there in the title.

How much do I hate cutting the grass. That’s not a question. I absolutely dread cutting the grass. It’s a chore that takes my breath away, causes me to sweat to within an inch of a heart attack, I am sure, and causes untold numbers of muscles and bodily-apparati to rebel against me. It’s a solid two hours of hard-labour, wide expansive lawn, tortuous hills and valleys to navigae. By the end of it, I am a dripping, walking, moaning zombie.

I so hate cutting the grass that I cannot take any pleasure in its being cut. My wife oohs and aahs at how nice the lawn looks after its cut. But I don’t see that. All I see is grass that will only need to be cut again in a week or so. From the moment the lawn-mower (a gas-powered push mower, by the way. I’d never whine and complain if I had a ride-on mower. Rich benefactor, are you listening?) powers down, I start dreading the fact that it’ll have to be done again in a week’s time. Seven short days. Yes, as soon as the last blade of grass gets mowed, instead of celebrating an accomplished task, I begin to get depressed that the chore will have to be repeated again in a week.

That’s how much I hate mowing the lawn.

Now, though, there is a bit of relief. My son has finally reached the age where he can help. Over the course of the summer so far, each grass-cutting, he has taken more and more of the responsibility, to the point where there is currently a 2/3 to 1/3 labour distribution ratio, me taking the higher. It would be a fifty-fifty split if there weren’t the ditch and hill parts of the lawn to cut. I don’t think he’s old/strong enough to handle those clines yet.
His motivation for helping is not driven by mere humanity, helping the old man kind of feelings. No, it’s strictly economic, and I have no problem with that.

He is truly saving my life. Truly. For that, I pay him well.

Maybe next year, the entire lawn-mowing responsibility will be with him, and I’ll be free. Gloriously Free!! One day it will be so.

And on that day, I will understand, a little, how joyous the French felt in June, 1944.

I was watching Last Comic Standing last night, and the challenge they faced was to pitch a sitcom idea with only 2 hours to prepare. The only rule was that each comic had to star in the sitcom they pitch. My wife supposed that I would have no trouble with that challenge as I likely have a couple of sitcom ideas floating around in my head.

I do, in fact. I have two.

Right away, I thought of Bolo. I think it’s time for a sitcom starring a monkey, and Bolo The Monkey is that monkey. At first , I was going to call the sitcom “The President’s Monkey”, but after some thought, I think “The Monkey’s President” is better. In “The Monkey’s President”, I star as a high-ranking presidential aide. Through a complicated series of events that nobody can quite figure out (perhaps involving a gift from a foreign diplomat), I am given a monkey – Bolo, The Monkey – as my assistant. Naturally, high-jinx abound as Bolo causes, and (at the end of each episode) solves untold numbers of hilarious problems. “We can’t let the press find out that a monkey is running the country!” would be a common utterance. “Bolo!!!!” would be another. This idea is Gold, I tell ya. Gold!!!

So, that’s “The Monkey’s President”.

My other idea for a sitcom is called “Jumping The Shark”, and I think this one might actually be worthwhile. The phrase “jumping the shark” refers to the episode in Happy Days when Fonzie jumped the tank full of sharks on his motorcycle. Now, “jumping the shark” is a phrase that’s used to represent the episode in any episodic television program in which, through a desperate and absurd stunt, the series loses its credibility or believability.

The premise of Jumping The Shark would be that every episode would be the jumping the shark episode of the series. Every episode would revolve around that implausible event or stunt that causes fans to say ‘oh come on’ in disbelief.
I’m not sure, yet, exactly what the episodes would entail. Whether it would center around the same group of individuals, or whether each week would showcase a different sitcom.

I kinda like the idea that each episode would be about a different sitcom. That way we could spoof the various genres. There’d always be a core group of actors who would star in these jumping the shark sitcom one-off episodes. The challenge, since each week would showcase a different one-off sitcom, would be to ensure that each sitcom feels lived-in, inhabited. As if they were running for a couple of years, have run out of ideas, and have resorted to pulling this week’s stunt in order to keep the viewers.

There. What a great idea! Sign me up, producers.

When I become Mayor-Hole of this burg, one of the first crazy laws that I will force all establishments to follow is this: in restaurants of all description, any and all burgers will come with cheese as the default. If you want a burger without cheese, then make that special request. Unless it’s specifically called a “Hamburger”, I expect cheese on something that has the ‘burger’ suffix.

I went to A&W for lunch today, and ordered a Poppa Burger. Only when I opened the thing, did I realise that cheese is not the norm on a Poppa Burger. Why oh why not? Still, it was a fantastically great burger. Where else does that happen? Well, with the Whopper at Burger King. One must remember to order a Whopper With Cheese. When I am Mayor-Hole, I will force Bush Dumville to change it so that one must order a Whapper Without Cheese if one doesn’t want cheese.

By the way, another of my plans for when I become Mayor-Hole is to take over the Tim Hortons on University Aveneue (by the KFC) and have it set up as a Drive-Thru Complaint department. It will be, in fact, the only place in town where The City will take note of complaints. And only Drive-Thru complaints. There will be no Walk-In complaints. If you don’t have a car, tough crap. If you want to complain about it, hire a taxi to take you through the Drive-Thru Complaint Department.

Oh, I have all kinds of crazy ideas for when I become Mayor-Hole.

This post over at xtcian, about running into a tureky, reminded me of a bird experience I had about 20 years ago. (you know what? I had originally typed ’10 years ago’, thinking it was actually 10 years ago. I then had the sudden explosion of realisation that it was actually 20 years ago. Holy crap! 10 years just flew by my eyes. Am I that old?)

At that time, I used to golf quite a bit, with college buddies. One day we were on our way to Green Gables (this, in the days when one’s PEI golfing options could be counted on one hand) for an afternoon round. I was driving my military green 1978 Honda Civic, and as we were about to drvie down into a little valley, I noticed on the road on the incline on the other side of the valley, a crow was standing in the middle of my side of the road.

Being a goof, I told the guys to watch this, we were gonna play chicken with a crow. I gunned the motor, and charged towards the bird. As we kept approaching, the crow kept its back to us. “He’s playing us” was the general consensus from the car. Suddenly, about 10 seconds before we reached where the bird was, it turned around and stared at us. It stared us down.

It stared me down. The driver. The only one who really mattered in this test of wills. Our eyes locked, and I could tell that this crow was not going to budge. If we were to win this game of chicken, we’d have to hit the crow.

At the last second, I swerved out of the way and drove past the crow. The crow did not move. As I drove away, up and over the hill, I looked in the rearview mirror. Shivers still go down my spine as I recall the icy stare of that crow in that mirror.

Yes, I was beaten by a crow.