Friday, February 23, 2007

Yay Dad!

This is a video my dad made to send to prospective churches that are looking for a pastor (as he is looking for a church). It includes an introduction to how he likes to preach, a couple of examples of how he uses humor in his sermons, and him playing the piano and singing. This was a big step for him to make something like this and I'm very proud of him. Go Dad!


Friday, February 16, 2007

The Holy Quatrony

I was flipping through the channels tonight and accidentally saw the last five minutes of PAY IT FORWARD. Being a movie person, one might think that if I were going to have seen the movie I would have by now, but still; I felt cheated having it ruined for me.

I think it would be a cool feature if TV Stations had an optional "blank" page when you first turned to them, telling you what they were showing, and then you hit Enter if you're cool with that, thus taking the blank page off that station. That way you'd avoid seeing the end of movies you're looking forward too, and also avoid uneccessary Full House marathons and such.

Speaking of Flipping around, one of the things I miss the very most about Canada is randomly flipping around and finding UGN: Unexpected Gratuitious Nudity. Perhaps the greatest advantage to living in Canada was how little standards when it came to such matters. The way they justified it (and you're going to love this), is that any program with objectionable material had to have a verbal and written warning after EVERY commercial break.

[Just a bit of a tangent here, but sometimes this could be frustrating too. Let's say you were watching a 12 episode run of "The L Word." Somewhere in that season is nudity, but not in every single episode. So the warning would say "The following program may contain scenes of nudity..." I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. If I'm slogging through some indie movie or British program or whatever, I need assurances that my time and effort will be paid off then!]

The warnings were such a joke because it seems like they were being more protective than America, which usually just does the letters up in the corner, but in reality it meant far more. Showcase was a particularly great channel, showing HBO and Showtime shows, as well as European movies, and many was the Friday night when I waited for a commercial break of some lame looking movie, hoping to hear the words, "The following program may contain scenes of violence, strong language, nudity and sexuality," or what I liked to call the Holy Quatrony.

It wasn't just Showcase though that had nudity. Almost any channel could, and at any time of day. I saw naked bodies at 3:00 in the afternoon on Bravo Canada once, and CTV, which if available even to those who don't have cable was infamous for educational "sex" shows on Fridays and Saturday nights. They may have been borderline educational, but the visual aids were definitely not necessary.

But they were appreciated.

I miss you, my frozen nipply maple leafy peeps.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith

Before I begin I want to admit two things right up front:

First, I have absolutely no factual basis to make the following claim. Normally I harpoon people who sit around on TV engaging in pure speculation about celebrity news events without any evidence whatsoever. I am only making this ONE TIME exception because if I am right it is the greatest call of all time and I must get it on record first.

Secondly, up to this point I have cared not a fig for Anna Nicole Smith, other than to the extent that hearing about her annoyed me. And while all human life is precious (legal boilerplate, blah blah blah), I take absolutely no shame in snarkily ripping her last few days. Deal.

I got a phone call last night from Kaida, whose first words were "Anna Nicole Smith is dead."

Though still half asleep, my immediate thought was "She killed herself."

Big deal, right? Like it takes a real genius to see that one coming. However, this was followed by several rapid-fire thoughts that hit me like a ton of bricks. (Lightning had struck my brain.)

Not only did Anna Nicole Smith kill herself, my still sleepy brain told me, she did so because yesterday a judge said she had to submit to a paternity test.

Here's where it gets funky: The reason that judgment was the catalyst for Anna Nicole Smith to take her own life is that she knows the paternity test is not going to reveal which of the two men currently duking it out is the father of Anna's daughter.

No, I predict the paternity test will reveal that Anna Nicole Smith's son was the father. Futhermore, I think this bears directly on his utterly bizarre death last year; either a suicide over the guilt, or possibly she even killed him.

Now, I know this is complete speculation, and not even remotely plausible. But when this turns out to be true you tell every man woman and child who told you first.

Oh, and "Anna Nicole Smith Naked" and "nude pictures of Anna Nicole Smith" do not appear in this post, but I figured writing those words might scare up a few more visitors, so consider me a shameless whore. (Sort of fits the theme.)