#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.

#67 - you lost yo mind?

i was a latecomer to the world of LOST. i never got into it originally & then for years, because one of my past roommates watched both it & 24 (which i will never watch) i lumped them into the same category, "pointless." then i had enough people tell me they loved LOST, so i started watching it pretty obsessively last spring & finally caught up about a week after last season ended. by the end of watching last season, i found myself checking all sorts of LOST websites & episode guides, scouring through the minisites, building theories...i had the bug pretty bad.

...so when this season started, i was psyched to be able to watch it in real time with the rest of the world, but during the first episode, it was clear that when watching the first four seasons, i definitely benefited from having a pause button at my disposal when watching. without it, i miss/don't absorb everything that's going on. since then, i've gotten better at absorbing.

last night was 8th of 17 episodes in the season & the last episode until march 18th. after this season, there's one season left & the show's done, so they have an ending point to work towards, which probably helps....SPOILERS BELOW?

this year's theme is that a group (the oceanic six) has managed to leave the island, but in doing so, all hell breaks loose on the island, as it keeps skipping through time (because it's obviously a time machine) & the crash survivors who remained on the island have to endure through that crap...so obviously those who left need to get back to the island to save those who are still there. last night, they officially made it back to the island & met up with those who stayed behind...obviously, this happened because they all got on a plane that flew through certain coordinates & they ended up back on the island...but due to all the time skipping it is now 1974 on the island...obviously...so i have probably not been born yet...unless it is december or late november...obviously.

there have been some good moments this season (the locke suicide scene was killer), but there have also been a lot of other "history of the island" moments tossed in & lots of skipping through time, so the storyline's very disjointed, which is unsettling at times. i guess we're supposed to feel as unhinged as the characters or something.

i mean, even though there's so much going on, it's not as if LOST has become ridiculous, like heroes. it's actually an interesting device that each episode seems to have moments where you start out thinking "wait...who the f are these people?" and over time, they make their way into the storyline. it adds to the individual uniqueness of each episode. anyway, i just hope all this junk is leading somewhere good or i will personally send j.j. abrams a box of poop...not really though. after all, it's just a show.

#67 - you lost yo mind?
snack: hebert's berry good! dark chocolate bar
drink: fort collins brewery chocolate stout

while i watched the survivors play around in 1974 island time, i couldn't help but think of/get nostalgic for my childhood & luckily, while watching, i had a snack that fit that nostalgic-for-childhood theme--the hebert's berry good! dark chocolate bar.

when i was growing up in new hampshire, we'd often visit my mom's parents in westboro, mass & on the way, we'd often stop at hebert's candy mansion in shrewsbury. the mansion is this house full of all kinds of candy. we were like kids in a candy store. as a kid, i was very partial to the maple candy & the rock candy...so yeah, this dark chocolate bar made by them makes me all nostalgic & junk. i want rock candy now.

tastewise, it's my jam! it's a bar packed on top with all sorts of awesome junk--strawberries, blueberries, cranberries & white chocolate chips. i give the taste five thumbs up.

on the flip side, there was my choice of drink for the evening, the fort collins brewery chocolate stout. i give it five flaccid penises. it's totally bland & hardly chocolaty & not very stouty at all. i've enjoyed fort collins brewery beers in the past, but this one bored me. maybe it was because after eating the hebert bar, my taste buds we're so doped up on nostalgic candy goodness that nothing else could satisfy their insatiable enjoyment levels, not even a chocolaty beer from colorado.

#64 - you could be heroes.

readers! on the honor system! raise your hand if you liked heroes at the end of season one. keep it up if you still liked heroes at the end of season two. the end of the first half of season three? how about where we are now, halfway through the second half of season three? any hands still up?

i go back & forth on whether or not i like it any more. here it is wednesday & i'm just getting around to watching this past monday night's episode. yeah i've been slightly busy, but usually i at least end up fitting in an irrational 1am viewing or something even when i'm busy, but these days, i could care less how quickly i catch the week's episode. their "to be continued..." at the end of every episode should be the thing that makes me go, "OH SNAP! i can't wait til the next episode! must troll internet for advance information!"...but it doesn't. instead, it makes me think, "oh. that's it?" then i yawn & go look at internet porn in an attempt to get my excitement levels back up.

if you give your characters the decision-making skills of an eight-year old & make them do things that are just plain stupid...you could be heroes.

if you make your characters spell out their feelings in every blatant which way possible short of writing them on a chalkboard & shining a floodlight on it...you could be heroes.

if you bank a good portion of your television franchise on two sub-par actors (milo & hayden, i'm looking in your direction)...you could be heroes.

if you keep making every single friggin season lead up to a catastrophic, city-destroying explosion...you could be heroes.

if you're basically in your fourth season, which is when the 4400 started to get lame & got canceled & therefore you're on notice in my book because you're also starting to become a bit lame...you could be heroes.

#64 - you could be heroes.
snack: snyders chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod
drink: sunkist soda

on the other hand, in the snacking world, simple & straight forward is much more successful & appealing to me. while i watched heroes, i chomped on a snyders chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod. snyders is based in hanover, pa, which may be the snack capital of the world, as it's also home to utz potato chips. rumor is that sometimes the two companies get together & rumble in the town square with pipes & chains & buckets of acid. anyway, the chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod is simple & tasty & i wolfed it down. it was sort of like deep throat, but with more chewing.

since i was feeling that i gotta feel those good good good good vibrations, i washed the rod down with a tall, cool glass of sunkist soda. sunkist is so intertwined with oranges that they don't even have to use the word "orange" in their soda name. sunkist = oranges. say no more.

i haven't had sunkist in a while & i think that contributed to how much i enjoyed drinking it...like, it was really tasty. like, it's possibly the most i've enjoyed a glass of soda this decade. like, wow. i'm serious. i'm wishing i had some more right now...not heroes though. that can wait.

#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.

#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.