Colour Me Confused

"This is art. This is physical poetry. It's like the dance. And when you see it, you're transformed, because they bring you to another place. It's very moving. THIS is the challenge, against which HISTORY will measure these eaters."

I'm so confused. I'm in a constant state of bemusement and bewilderment, and I can't see the light of clarity anywhere. I just don't understand, and because of this, at this very moment, I'm beginning to go slightly mad.

It's been almost a week since last Thursday. Last Thursday was supposed to have changed everything. EVERYTHING. I was told that this was absolute fact! FACT! And now it's nearing the end of Wednesday, and nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing. I have woken up each day for six days straight, feeling the same feelings, running through the same routine, only to become more frustrated with each passing hour, each passing minute. I've looked outside, and people are going about their regular daily business as if nothing monumental has occurred. Are they blind? Can they not see what has transpired? Have they not been affected? Are they immune to the epic power of the event now past? Someone answer me!

Perhaps this is all a game. But it can't be! I'm still here, in the same place, eating the same Chicken Italiano Chunky soup, drinking the same calcium-fortified soy-based chocolate milk. Nothing is right; I haven't gone anywhere. It's like absolutely nothing of importance has happened, and the general population of this metropolitan area, and I would guess hundreds just like it, have had the same absence of transformation.

They lied to me. Those fuckers out and out lied.

Nothing has changed. Life is the same! The Turkey Bowl is a farce. Shame on the MLE! Shame on the Major League of Eating!

Idiots.

I Can Feel The Warmth Through My Television

An email from a friend of mine, Rich Laffin, prompted the following exchange today:

From Rich:

Hey Tylers, Just wanted to make sure you both knew the fire channel on shaw is back. It's a awesome as ever, too bad it's not in HD. Richie

From Tyler:

!!!

I have been watching it intently ever since Remembrance Day, I believe. I read somewhere that SHAW Cable wanted to honour the heroes of the wars by completely revamping the holiday fireplace loop. It is spellbinding. The ever-changing setup, the mysterious hand that pokes and prods the fire with his/her fire poker-prodder. It is truly a wonder. I have numerous hours already on tape so that I may relive it's glory forever, or until I'm persecuted for my continued belief in the god "VHS".

We have reached a zenith in humanity, my brethren.

Yours in mediocrity,

Tyler

As some of you Edmontonians, general Albertans, or anyone who read my last blog update may already know, Shaw Cable initiated the 24/7 loop of the Fireplace last week. This loop (on Channel 11 for those in the capital city) consists of a one-hour-plus loop of a fireplace in all its fiery glory. The hisses, the cracks, the pops, and even the snaps are all dutifully included in this audio-visual televison legend. This lazily-programmed channel will be shown until January 20th, which is a damn long time. I'm certainly worried about all of the Shaw Digital Previews I'm going to miss. I'll never know what's happening right now on Animal Planet, or who won the crucial 1997 playoff series between the Blues and the Red Wings. However, all my hand-wringing is for a good cause! Because over two months of sweet, flaming goodness will be at every cable owner's fingertips. It is truly great to be alive! As noted in several Edmonton media stories, "the blockbuster log is back".

Yes, the "blockbuster" is indeed back. In 1986, and every year thereafter, someone at Shaw Cable sets up a camera and tapes a fireplace for the most exciting and titillation footage not seen since the OJ Simpson police chase or the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis. I mean this is a natural, roaring fireplace. This isn't your sissy natural gas fireplace, or some shitty drawing of a fireplace that your son/daughter did, and you had to put it on the fridge, lest you hear their whining for the next two months. And they drew the fireplace green with blue fire. And there's a unicorn in there, or what should be a unicorn. It could be a potato with triangles for all you know.

If you've ever had company over for Christmas, and you've got everything laid out for a super-awesome party, you know why this channel is there. You've got family, or good friends or just people you met at the bus station coming over for Christmas cheer. You've got some liquor, some egg nog, some quick edibles like little cheese cubes, some cut pieces of a ham sausage, and maybe some crackers, like "Sociables". You've got some generic Christmas music playing in the background, which might be Roy Orbison's Christmas Special, or God-forbid, "Christmas Album" by Boney M. You're all dressed up in some Christmas-themed sweater or dress-type getup. The tree is alit with wonderful lights, and retarded decorations collected through the years, some of which you once thought were "cute", "adorable" or "cheap".

There's a TV in the room. It's just there, taking up valuable folding chair space. What do you do? The answer's simple, and you can thank Shaw Cable for it. Simply turn on the Christmas firelog, and you'll have a wondrous distraction from the aunt that always gets drunk and throws up in the toilet by the back door, or the grandpa that always yells, and is somewhat racist.

So please, this holiday/Christmas season, take a few minutes and truly appreciate the simple pleasure that is the Shaw TV fireplace. I think you'll be glad you did.

The Return

After watching The Natural about 45 times on AMC over the past two months, I've noticed some commonalities between its plot and my blog. For starters, they both star a rugged blond dreamboat, adored and respected by multitudes of women and men alike. Now, all personal delusions aside, when you look at the development of the character in Roy Hobbs, and the progress of this site, there are some similarities (with the film, not the book. The book ends on a shitty note). Roy fashions a powerful bat from a fallen oak tree; I fashioned this "powerful" blog from a fallen level of physical activity. Roy was a 35-year-old "rookie" with a big-league club; I was a 26-year-old "rookie" when I started writing. Roy's natural talent turned the New York Knights into a contender, but then his interest in a woman compromises his playing ability; My natural writing ability turned "Rhymes With Tyler" into a distraction from work, but then my lack of content and subject matter compromised my update frequency.

But Roy came back from his slump, and in the end, he was victorious, as seen in the video above. Luckily, he had his back-up music playing on the old Victrola. For me, I've come back to writing after a two-month hiatus, with the easy topic of writing about coming back to writing after two months. My backup music is playing on the old JVC 3-disc CD changer. Is it cheating? Possibly. Is it the easy way? Absolutely.

My last post was on September 13, and admittedly, it's not much of a post. I had to put something in there, just to keep the site running. So really, my last post with any real compositional elements would be August 23. Fuck, that's a long time ago. What the hell has happened since then? Nothing? Nothing at all worth writing about? Actually, that's where the irony lies. There's been plenty to write about, but mostly journal-type material. Which, if you've read any of my blog, is material that I don't want to write about. I don't need to write about my life, as I've stated a few times before. My life isn't that interesting, per se. My secret life is awesome! And I write about stupid, nostalgic things in my secret life. Jerry O'Connell, eat it. I've just had the writer's block of late. I needed a break from writing about cereal, children's shows and sarcasm for just a small while, and when I felt up to it, I could return.

So here we are. What's happened to me since two days before my birthday? I will explain, using one big ugly sentence.

I drank the day before my birthday, I drank the day of my birthday (in Calgary), I went houseboating in the Shuswap, I got carbon monoxide poisoning, I went camping in Wainwright, I wore extremely short denim shorts, I started organizing events for the SA of Grant MacEwan, I met and drank with Kari and Tory of the Mythbusters (Tory's first time in Canada was Edmonton!), I made fun of shitty-looking PT Cruisers while bonding with Irshad Manji, I got a key cut, and other such activities bordering between super cool and super inane.

Because I couldn't find anything worth commonting about that wasn't about me, I didn't write. And no matter how loud the lamentations of all my readers were, I just couldn't subject them to that type of banal narration (sorry, mom and dad). However, we've reached a turn-around. I've just noticed that Channel 11 has the Shaw Christmas Fireplace on the loop, WELL before it usual scheduled airing, and what's this? A new-look fireplace? The inner pop-culture nerd in me is ecstatic! (and inner Grandpa as well, apparently. Because old people like watching static images for a very long time. Uh, apparently)

I feel invigorated!

*Cue inspirational music*

Let a new age of writing begin! Let the remembrance of nostalgia re-commence!

So hey, does anyone remember Gold Rush bubble gum?