You know what my favorite recurring theme from the long running television series Cheers was?

It was when they would involve a not-so-friendly rivalry with the other bar in Boston — which happened to be Gary’s Olde Town Tavern.  It was nice to see some competition between the two establishments and the camaraderie that everyone would have — even characters like Cliff — when it came down to defending the honor of Cheers. But I always just got a kick out of how everyone at Gary’s would, when he entered their bar as well, shout out “NORM!” in the same way that they would do at Cheers.

Today I got my first taste of what could be described as my own Cheers / Gary’s Old Towne Tavern rivalry.

It’s not really a rivalry as much as another entity. And by entity I mean someone else’s blog.  Someone of whom I’ve heard around the blogosphere but never got around to adding to my feed reader. Someone who everyone thinks is witty and clever. Someone whose name was mentioned in the same sentence as mine, in fact, of people to follow on Twitter who can make you laugh.

I simply had never gotten around to following the tweets of or reading the blog belonging to LeSomber.*

Until today. After some coaxing from a blog buddy who told me how much we were alike and how I would love his blog so much. (If I could find it. He has decided to forgo the “.com” suffix in favor of something far more obscure.)

And you know what? After reading more about him, I discovered that we are eerily alike in many ways!  For example:

• Both of us are called Mike
• We both live in capital cities of our respective countries.
• Both of us absolutely despise loud chewers
• Favorite song for both of us by 80s pop group Nu Shooz — “B-b-b-b-baby, I-I-I Can’t Wait.”
• We both like to relax in front of a nice fire, snuggled under a blanket — with a Tim Horton’s cinnamon cruller in one had and a piping hot prostitute in the other.
• We concur that Rick Mercer has a slightly abnormally large head.

I was a bit taken aback, however, when I looked at his blog — because I found that he had many readers who reply to his witty blog entries with comments. And those commenters? Many of them are the same folks who comment on my blog! (Which you can read at http://www.shinystakeout.com.)  I feel like you’ve all been spreading your allegiances. You have two communities yelling “NORM!” when you enter their domains. The analogy, in fact, is just like Cheers — in that he provides a slightly more upscale environment where he blogs more frequently and takes the time to respond to your comments, and I simply have a Woody.

Perhaps it’s simply an awakening for me: I had heard that this other Mike was great. Great writer. Funny. Friendly.  Consistent. Is this someone with whom I can keep up? Now that I know that you all are shopping around for your blog content needs and I see the quality which LeSomber provides — will my content pale in comparison?   Will I, in essence, simply become a redundant Mike who blogs?

I can tell you this much: Not on my watch.

Consider this an open declaration, Mr. LeSomber: I will not let you make me redundant.  I will read your blog regularly. And, in doing so, I will motivate myself to bring more of the funny to my blog. I’ll even try to reply to comments more often.  We’re living in a trying time where people have to make tough choices, and I’m not going to let me be decided out of the blogosphere.

I will not let me become the redundant Mike.

I do have to give kudos to this LeSomber fellow, though. He doesn’t stoop so low as to fill the content on his page with witty sitcom clips off of YouTube:

Direct YouTube Link

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* I am aware that he spells the name of his blog differently. Out of respect for my country, however, I have decided to use the traditional United States of American spelling.

“Do you have a step-brother?”

This was a weird question to get asked while driving Av home from school the other day.

A bit of background: I have one brother who is three years older than me. His name, as revealed here previously, is Captain Awesome. (Also revealed previously: I gave him that name on my blog before  the pilot episode of Chuck aired.) After I was born, my parents decided that life was now perfect for them and decided not to have any more children. Or, more likely, they realized what a pain I was as a kid and used that thought as an impetus for birth control. And that was it.  No step-siblings, no half-siblings. Just CA and me.

So — where did the question come from? Could it have been due to an exploration of family life of some of his classmates who, possibly, could have step-siblings? Perhaps.  But it took a moment for me to realize where he got it from.

His favorite pasttime has been watching the adventures of these two guys:

If you haven’t met them, these are Phineas and Ferb, the title characters to the Disney channel cartoon of the same name. The premise: these two kids are step-brothers trying to figure out how to spend their summer vacation, and they come up with these brilliant, incredible ideas / inventions that let them do anything and everything — whether it’s creating a beach in their backyard or starting a band just to become a one-hit wonder. There’s a lot of potential for utter chaos and destruction in the name of fun.  All the while their older sister, Candace, is all about busting them for their escapades, but their mom never ends up seeing them and simply thinks her daughter is hysterical. There’s also a subplot involving their pet platypus named Perry, an animal who has a double life as a secret agent trying to stop an evil genius named Doofenshmirtz.

Oh — and Phineas does most of the talking. Ferb might have one line per episode which he delivers in his proper British accent.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch this show, I highly recommend it. It reminds me a lot of the cartoon humor seen on Anamaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.  Kids can get into it, and adults get the subtle (and some not so subtle) nuances.

But back to the topic at hand: step-brothers.  Here was a concept I wanted to explain to my son. In fact, the notion of siblings in general is a bit foreign to him as an only child. So I decided to start with this line of questioning.

“Av, do you know what makes Uncle Awesome and me brothers?”

“Yeah, because you two are brothers!”

“No, I mean… what do the two of us have in common? What do we have that’s the same.”

He thought about this a bit. Then he figured it out: “You have the same last name!”

True. “But what else? Do we have the same Dad?”

“Yes!”

“And we had the same Mom?”

“Yes! The same Dad and the same Mom!”

“Right! So that makes us brothers — we’re both boys, and we have the same parents. Do you know what step-brothers are?”

“Um…. You have the same Mom and Dad but different last names?”

“Well, close. Step-brothers have … well, let’s see…”

This was tough.

“Okay. Phineas has a mom who is married to Ferb’s Dad…”

“… so that’s why they’re step-brothers!”

“Um… yeah. So now do you understand what step-brothers are?”

He paused for about two or three seconds. And then:

“Hey Dad — let’s make a big fire in the backyard!”

The moral of the story as I see it: don’t let your kids watch television shows which contain step-brothers. Or crazy antics involving fire. Or explosions. Discussing this stuff can be dangerous to one’s personal property.

I’m “List on the 3s” and I approve this blog entry.

Ah, Fall television season, how I love you and curse you. You bring me exciting new episodes of shows, both new and returning, and you suck up my valuable time while I get engrossed in the lives of people who actually don’t exist. What a shameful and exciting mistress you are…

Yes, I’m a televisioholic.  I simply can’t quit any time I want. I get so involved in the serialized shows that I can’t bear to miss even one episode. Let’s face it — I just enjoy character development. I like to think about how these characters would involve themselves in my environment. Or vice versa.

Which is why I’d love to have a dinner party of sorts. And I’d invite characters who are currently on the air. (Sorry, Mallory Keaton…) I’m also limiting it to fictional characters and not reality stars (Sorry Phil Keoghan). I might not love each and every one of these folks, but I think it would make for an interesting evening.

Top 10 Fictional TV Characters Shiny Would Invite Over for a Dinner Party




10.  Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother

He might be a bit of a jerk. He might monopolize the entire conversation. He might make it all about himself. He might hit on every woman there.  But I’m sure he’ll bring a really, really nice and really, really expensive bottle of wine.  Good enough for me…




9. Charlotte “Chuck” Charles from Pushing Daisies

Chuck has a lot going for her: She’s smart. She’s witty. She’s compassionate. She’s beautiful. As we found out early on, she’s Jewish — which means she could lead everyone in Birkat Hamazon if we wanted her to. And she’s dead — not really a strong point, but her ressurection gives her a very happy outlook on life, not taking any of it for granted. And besides — she’ll bring pie! How cool is that?

It was either going to be her or Ned, “The Piemaker.” But she’s far easier on the eyes. And besides — I’d be afraid that Ned would come in and accidentally touch some dead bugs or something which may be somehwre around the house. Yuckers…




8. Creed Bratton from The Office

Yes, yes. I know that Creed Bratton is actually a real person. But we’re talking about the fictional Creed Bratton played by the real Creed Bratton. He works in Quality Assurance, which is usually a good source of story material. However, considering that Creed can’t even remember what it is that he does at the office, we’d get by on his interesting anecdotes about everything and anything. We would, however, have to search him for missing silverware at the end of the night.




7. Anna Wu from Chuck

She could very well be the most ass-kickin’ character on that show.  She’s a member of the somewhat elite “Nerd Herd” at the Buy More, and she wears her tie and white, short-sleeved shirt better than anyone else there.  The only caveat is that I wouldn’t let her bring her boyfriend Morgan — the dude doesn’t get how much out of his league she is.




6. Ray Carling from Life on Mars

(From left to right: Dean Andrews from the original British series; Lenny Clarke from the unaired USA pilot set in L.A.; Michael Imperioli from the current USA series set in New York)

These are a bunch of hard-working cops. Kind of. Not extremely bright, but they hold their own in their respective precincts back in 1973 (or 1972 in the case of the L.A. pilot) (or 1981 in the case of Ashes to Ashes, the British LoM spinoff). Plus, they all have wonderful moustaches.  It will be funny if I serve tomato soup…




5. and 4. The “Two A-Holes” from Saturday Night Live

These two (played by Jason Sudekis and Kristen Wiig) are two of the most obnoxious characters I will have ever met. But they’d probably leave halfway through the party to get Starbucks or something, so we could talk about them. And then they’d come back and interrupt us. And maybe Creed would kill them or, at the very least, gut them like fish. So, any way you slice it, it’s entertainment for all.




3. Patrick Jain from The Mentalist

This one comes with a bit of caution — this con-man pretending to be a psychic turned consultant for the California Bureau of Investigations can read people extremely well. He seems pleasant enough, but he’ll probably look at my kitchen or the way I serve broccoli and determine exactly which shade of anxiety I have about my penis.  He’s really freaky like that. Of course, I could always sit him next to Ray Carling and let him have a field day with him instead…




2. Dr. Remy Hadley from House

Dr. Hadley, a.k.a. “Thirteen,” knows her stuff. She knows what she wants in life. She’d probably bring the best booze. And she’d probably let us all watch while she makes out with Anna from Chuck. Except for Barney Stinson — who would keep on hitting on her and getting rejected.  That in itself would be fun to watch.

Plus — if there’s any food poisoning at the table? No problem; we’ve got a doctor!




1. Darnell “Crabman” Turner from My Name is Earl

How can you not like Crabman? He’ll be kind and respectful. And he’ll ask for seconds for dessert instead of just assuming that everyone has had firsts. What a mensch…

So — that’s my dinner party. How about you all?

Hi all — This is actually not the Shiny you know and love writing this post. I’m actually Shiny from four years in the future.  I’ve disguised my appearance to look like present-day Shiny, but in reality I have a big scar down on both sides of my face. And I look just like Ali Larter. But I’m not really her.

Anyway — “List on the 3s” is a meme used by Shiny from the inception of this blog until all such lists were deemed immoral and illegal under the iron fist of President Palin in March of 2011. The premise, where Shiny presents a list of something on any date than has a 3 in it, eventually became the base of a mid-season reality show on VH-1 during the writers’ strike of 2010. Hopefully, sometime in the not-so-distant future, these lists will be able to emerge to the surface yet again.

I was doing some Spring cleaning and found this letter received by Shiny from Tim Kring and the folks at Heroes. I would scan it in, but due to strict intellectual property violations due to the Coburn-Lohan Act of 2012, that could cost me a lot of money just to reprint a trademarked logo.

Anyway — here you go. Hopefully I’ve timed this to post exactly eleven minutes after present-day Shiny posted his letter to the NBC Brass…

Dear Mr. Shiny:

Thank you for your recent correspondence with us concerning Heroes. We are always grateful when our fan base chooses to voice is collective opinion.

Regarding your submissions for additional Heroes characters — I’m afraid we’ll have to pass on including them in the show’s cast.  I have detailed our reasons for rejection for each character below.

Thank you — we hope you remain a fan of Heroes and continue to watch every Monday night. Please remember that if you enjoy Heroes at 9, you’ll probably also love Deal or No Deal an hour earlier at 8:00

Regards,

Tim Kring

Top Eight Heroes Characters Suggested by Shiny and Rejected by NBC

8. Jamal Franklin III – “the Pollenator:” He grew up in a tough, working class neighborhood south of Chicago where he played high school football during the fall season. But in springtime? He was often stuck at home with hay fever. Until he realized it was not an ailment, but a gift: he can shoot pollen out of his hands, causing severe allergies for his enemies.

Reason for rejection: Current sponsor Nasonex would likely drop the show.

7. Peter “Parker” Stone: Since he was a young boy, Peter could find every empty parking space within a 50 mile radius. This hasn’t been very helpful as he lives in Laramie, Wyoming where parking is plentiful. And he enjoys biking everywhere. But what if he ever found himself in New York? Opportunities are endless!

Reason for rejection: Premise isn’t “green” enough for Heroes. Perhaps a hero who could promote carpool lanes?

6. Noelle Calabrese, a DMV employee in Evans, Florda, discovered that she was different when she was babysitting the next door neighbor kid when she was sixteen. She determined that, if she willed it with her mind, she could grow facial hair on boys and girls under the age of nine.

Reason for rejection: Creepy. Just creepy.

5. Juliana Nidzviecki can do an absolutely perfect Borat impression. She lives in Turkmenistan where pretty much nobody cares.  But think of the possibilities if she moves to the States!

Reason for rejection: this is just stupid. And potentially litigious.

4. Nolan Harrison can find humor in every episode of According to Jim. Pretty impressive…

Reason for rejection: According to Jim was a valuable property that belonged to a rival network to NBC.

3. Phoebe “Photosynthesis” Baker: She can talk to — and understand — plants.  All types of plants. Ferns. Flowers. Oak trees. Tomato seedlings. Perhaps there could be a “just say no to drugs” very special episode where she has a heated debate with a bong full of marijuana…

Reason for rejection: FOX apparently has a similar series in development.

2. Glenn “The Voice” Lemieux: Glenn has known about his power for a while now — which is that he can imitate any possible voice. Of course he can’t alter his appearance, which means the opportunities to be hero-like are limited.  Glenn spends most of his time as the wacky sidekick on Las Cruces, New Mexico’s “Gary and the Spoon Dude” morning radio show doing impressions of President Bush and Donald Trump.

Reason for Rejection: Comedic effect would take over the show in an undesirable way. This isn’t MadTV.

1. Mordechai Abramovitz, aka “Clothesline Mordy:” A native of Brooklyn, New York, Abramovitz discovered at age 17 that he had a special talent: he can alter the physical appearance of his clothing at will. Need a tuxedo? A bathing suit? All he has to do is think about it and it happens.  However, Abramovitz, a Chassidic Orthodox Jew, really has no use for this as he wears a similar white shirt, black pants, black overcoat and black hat day in and day out.

Reason for rejection: Television audiences are not positively responsive to big, thick beards.

Dear Tim Kring (and other writers/creators):

Last night I watched the third season premiere of Heroes on NBC.  I forwent the first hour of the three hour spectacular because (a) I’ve already seen every episode up to this point and didn’t require a recap or ads for the DVD boxed sets; and (b) How I Met Your Mother was on.  Much funnier. Not as funny as watching Greg Grunberg sprinting in pursuit of an assassin, but close.

Remember the golden days of Heroes two years ago? Remember when we saw people with very unique, different powers? There was a guy who could fly. One who could absorb anything she read photographically. A guy who could become invisible.  A cute little kid who could manipulate computers. The kid’s dad — a guy who could walk through walls. And, my favorite, an artist who could paint the future. The premise was brilliant.

I’ve never been a fan of someone whose power is to accumulate or dissipate the powers of others, but I can totally understand the need for this within the Heroes universe. It certainly helps the notion of superhero vs. supervillain.  I’ll even let the notion of a serum slide.

But lately? It just feels like the latter batches of heroes are all the same.  In the past two seasons I’ve been introduced to characters who can:

* fly. I mean — a different guy who can fly. Same power as Nathan Petrelli.
* run really, really, really fast.
* make flames shoot out of their hands
* make radiation shoot out of their hands
* make lightning bolts shoot out of their hands
* make a freeze-ray shoot out of their hands.

Even your animated series contest has two heroes in the running with pretty familiar talents: one who can slow down or speed up time, and one who can instantly predict all outcomes (which, I suppose, is more of a time manipulation as well).

With all due respect — is this show really going to turn into the X-Men episode by episode? Should we look for a character who can control anything magnetic? Will there be a high-maintenance actress who can control the weather at will? Do these new characters really have to have such powers with a huge magnitude? And are we going to see any more heroes just trying to live their normal lives in faraway places? Or will you be catering more towards the audience which falls into the MSM* demographic?

I’ve come up with a few ideas for new characters for Heroes: just a brief, verbal character sketch of each.  I submit them for your review. Hopefully we can work together to make the show a true monument of what it once was.

Yours,

Shiny

_____

* MSM = Mo’ Sweaty Mohinder

I’m sure most of you know about the phenomenon known as “RickRolling.” For those of you who are unfamiliar, it’s when someone posts a link on a blog or a website which is purported to be something interesting and enticing to click — but instead, it actually links to a video of actor Rick Schroeder on the set of “24” engaged in a hot embrace with Kiefer Sutherland. The gimmick is clever — a ploy to get people to watch something that they never expected to see. There were many instances of RickRolling on April Fools Day.

And today, I have decided to coin a phrase based on experiences of the day: RockyRolling.

It all started at the beginning of last week when we received a call from a representative of an organization called “Audience Research.” I initially took the call, but they were looking for a woman over the age of 18 to view a pilot for a TV series and answer questions. Knowing how much the two of us love unaired television, I passed the phone off to socKs.

She was told that a DVD would arrive in the mail sometime that week. She was to open the package and fill out a questionaire, and then wait until Monday evening (yesterday) to watch the show on that DVD. The instructions were specific that she should watch it on a DVD player — not a computer. The prospect sounded exciting! We’ve seen unaired pilots which we’ve gleaned from the web, but have never been part of the official pilot testing process!

Yesterday came and went — but with no DVD sent in the mail. Oh well… Perhaps they chose another lucky 18-54 year old woman…

But today — as I was home combating a nasty case of allergies and a head full of snot, I heard a “thud” outside our front screen door. When I opened it, I found the coveted package — with said surveys and the DVD inside. socKs was instructed to follow the instructions but, as the non-recipient of such a package, I was not bound by these rules! Instead, I decided to break an entirely different rule and open this package. I put the DVD in the player, went through the menus and declared that it was yesterday’s date, and watched the content.

And there it was in all of its glory – the test pilot episode of The Rocky LaPorte show.

You may be wondering — who the hell is Rocky LaPorte? He’s a comedian who has been on Leno and some Comedy Central specials. He was also in the film The Shaggy Dog with Tim Allen. Perhaps you’ll be more familiar with him from this picture:

No? Still nothing? Oh well. Seems like a nice enough guy. As I determined from scouring the web, he’s been out to Iraq to entertain the troops, which I consider a noble step my positions on the administration’s policy notwithstanding. Oh — and he’s a former boxer. Not unlike Tony Danza, who shares a birthday with me. So we’re like mishpocha already.

I determined pretty early on why they want you watching on a DVD player rather than on a computer: they’ve disabled the controls to fast forward or rewind. They instruct you to watch from start to finish without skipping anything. You can pause, but that’s it. Oh — and there are commercials. So you’re stuck watching those as well. Sounds fine to me. I had more than a half hour to kill, my body riddled with over-the-counter antihistamine.

The sitcom was a lot like According to Jim. I’ve never watched an episode of ATJ, but I assume that the recipe is the same. Here’s this big, beefy blue-collar worker (LaPorte) married to a white-collar piece of ass (Ann Cusack) whom he probably couldn’t get in the real world. They have two kids — a popular teenage girl who hates it when the mom tries to bond with her, and a pre-pubescent son who is the stereotypical nerd whom they’re trying to get to be less wound-up.

There’s also the wacky best friend, Sean. (Played by a guy named Matthew Glave. I was trying to place why he looked so familiar, and later confirmed that he played the sleazy boyfriend / fiance to Drew Barrymore in The Wedding Singer.) Sean works as an attendant in an assisted-living facility — a location which brings most of the comedy to the sit-com. The elderly women politely flirt with him and he has to remind them of the anti-fraternization policy which exists “for their protection.”

The only two discernible differences between this show and According to Jim are that (a) I’ve watched exactly one more episode of this show than that of ATJ; and (b) if I were to watch ATJ I likely would have been able to fast-forward through the boring, predictable parts. Here was tonight’s episode in a nutshell. Rocky (yes, his character’s name is Rocky, too! Original…) needs to get his wife a gift for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. He consults Sean, his best friend, at the assisted-living facility. Due to the wisdom of a senior resident, they get an idea! Jewelry! They go forth to a jewelry shop to get a diamond for the wife.

But when they get there they realize that jewelry is expensive! Especially diamonds. There are the same padded jokes about the price of the ring he can’t afford and the minuscule diamond on the ring he can afford. But then Sean finds the cubic zirconium section! For $150, Rocky could buy something that looks like a diamond ring. But he feels bad for shelling out less than $1000 on a gift. So he gets a cubic zirconium ring the size of a doorknob. And is amazed when his daughter knows, right away, that it’s not a real diamond.

But — what is he supposed to do? The anniversary is tonight! He can’t give her this ring, knowing full well that his beloved wife will know it’s not a real diamond! She comes home, she gives him his present (Bears season tickets), and he stalls by trying to find a gift in the kitchen. (Ha! Maybe he could regift the blender! Ha!)

The next day, with Sean’s help, he gets the ring exchanged for one with a real diamond. But the real present is that he learns how to dance — and that action apparently is more important to his wife than anything else in the world. Oh — and he puts the new ring in her champagne glass and she downs the champagne without him knowing that she has already removed the ring from the glass, and… well, now I’m just being difficult.

So — why did I tell you the plot of this pilot? Why didn’t I keep any elements secret for when this hits the airwaves?

Because it never will hit the airwaves.

No. This wasn’t about the dumb-ass, shallow television show at all. It was about the commercials in between. The commercials that we weren’t allowed to skip. I was amazed at the age of some of these ads. Remember that Best Buy add with that marionette than comes in looking for a laptop — and, when told that the laptop has wireless capability, daydreams of running around string-free? That was one of them. Because wireless internet is such a novelty now, right? There were also ads for soup, cookies, storage bags and motor oil.

And, when the marketing folks called socKs this evening (she watched the show before they called on *gasp!* her computer!), they asked very, very few questions about the show and more questions about the commercials and brand loyalty. They kept her on the phone for a solid half hour! (Thete was, of course, the incentive of us winning a special prize possibly.) At one time they asked her to put the DVD back in and skip to a specific commercial. As Av was busy watching the “Cars” movie, that simply wasn’t going to happen right then and there. And somewhere in the phone call, she got hung up on. Goodbye, prize… But that wasn’t before she had been instructed to send back the DVD in the postage-paid envelope.

So — why did I coin the term RockyRolling?

Because I googled “Rocky LaPorte” and “Audience Studies” this evening. Guess what? They’ve been sending out this DVD for at least a year now. “Audience Studies” is a marketing firm that has been, in a way, RickRolling the general population for years. Instead of sending a pilot in the mail for people to think that they are a cog in the machine that decides what gets put on television, they’re being duped into watching commercials. And not fast forwarding through them.

And I have to admit — I was a sucker here, too. I was RockyRolled.

If you’re a glutton for punishment and feel like watching the Rocky LaPorte show — well, here you go. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

Please don’t laugh — I’m very sensitive about these things…

The direct link to the video.

I suppose this is good a time as any to remind you that my BlogTalkRadio show, Shiny Talks Too Much, is on this evening at 9:00pm EDT / 6:00pm PDT. It’s the “All-British” show — where we’ll be talking in outrageous British accents and enjoying crumpets and stuff. More information can be found two posts below or at the show itself — at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/shiny.

It’s been about ten days since this blog went live — which means it’s probably time to use it for good and not evil at least once. Hence — a cause!

No, nor Darfur. Not saving the great white mosquitoes from being clubbed by baby seals. This is for a television show which I’m not even supposed to be watching because I don’t live in Canada!

But I watch it anyway. This CBC show of pure genius is called jPod.

Let’s backtrack a bit: When author Douglas Coupland released his 1995 novel Microserfs, I went out and got myself a copy without kowing anything about Coupland’s other body of work. It was an amazing read — a new style that I hadn’t seen before. It was something about the stream-of-consciousness writing style melded with the absolute geekiness of it all. And it chronicled a group of friends and their journey from working at Microsoft to doing bigger and better things. What Coupland, in essence, did was create a blog for his main character. Years before their time. The technology of the time has since become obsolete, but Microserfs is still timeless. I re-read it every six months or so.

And I was excited to read some of his other works throughout the years. They didn’t all delve into technology and geekdom like ‘serfs did, but that was okay. He just knew how to tell a story and get characters to interact and play off of each other, presenting their pre-existing baggage and conditions at the table.

I was really excited when I heard about his 2006 novel, jPod. Following four video-game designers who worked in close proximity in a basement in Vancouver, it seemed like a logical upgrade to Microserfs! I pre-ordered it on Amazon and awaited its arrival. And tore through it like a madman when it arrived.

It really, really sucked. I felt that he was simply trying to fill pages. And, in some cases, he does fill pages. Like the eleven towards the end where he enters strings of random numbers to see if you can find the lowercase letter “l.” I was angry at Coupland for writing himself into the book. I was not happy.

Then again, I had lofty expectations for Coupland. I thought this book would make an impact on me similar to what serfs did. And the book simply wasn’t another Microserfs. I had to accept that.

And then I heard about a CBC show with the same name which was being shown in Canada.

jPod, the TV show, parallels the book to a certain degree. The character development is quite unique — and demonstrated quite well on the screen to the point that I’m not going to give any of it away. All I can tell you is that most of the cast are unknown — aside from Alan Thicke, who plays our main character’s father — a struggling movie extra in the Vancouver film scene.

The show has been quite good — better than most other television options I’ve had since this winter due to the strike. There was critical acclaim in the Canadian press — but they decided to move it to Friday nights to die. And now the Save jPod movement is trying to get enough stir to get them back into production. (Twelve episodes have been filmed; ten have been shown so far, and the remaining two are expected to be shown next week and the week after.) And why not? It’s co-written by Coupland and is raw, funny, geeky and sex-charged. What more could you want?

If you live in Canada, you can watch episodes online at cbc.ca. If you live elsewhere, well *cough* I’m sure you can think of something. All I know is that if this ever comes out on DVD, they’ve got enough of a fanbase in the USA to scoop it up.

Here’s a production promo for the show. It does contain spoilers, so be forewarned: