The Chantastic Blog

My friends Stephe, Cobra, Jimbo, and Catalina have known each other for years. One of the things we always do is start unbelievably long e-mail chains where we reply all extremely frequently. How frequent? Here’s what my inbox looks like after an initial e-mail about going to a Raptors game. After a couple of e-mails, the topic changed to our new mutual obsession: the awesomeness that is Jersey Shore.

Note how everything stops right after 8 PM. That’s when Jersey Shore began (my e-mail account isn’t set to Eastern Standard Time and I don’t know how to fix it), and we decided that we needed a running live chat on MSN to discuss the show as it unfolded.

Isn’t it great to see technology being put to such constructive use?

One of my favorite shows is Cold Case. The premise of the show is that detectives from the Philadelphia homicide department investigate old murders and, through a series of interviews and flashbacks, solve the case at the end of the episode. Inevitably, the murderer turns out to be one of the people originally interviewed during the show, so it’s always interesting to see which person it was.

So the plot is designed in such a way that the murderer is always one of the guest stars. That’s not a problem…unless it becomes blatantly obvious who the murderer is right at the beginning of the episode. And that happens on Cold Case all the time. How? When one of the guest stars is a recognizable actor, that person will inevitably wind up as the killer. This makes sense in the world of acting - if you’re an actor with a decent resume, you’re going to want the juicy part where you end up being the killer.

However, this destroys any suspense that could have been built up during the episode. When someone with the acting resume of Sam Anderson shows up as a guest star for an episode, he might as well just write “I Did It” on his forehead.

I bring this up because I was watching Cold Case tonight, and five minutes in, an actor who looked vaguely familiar showed up, and I knew right away that he was the culprit. Fifty minutes later, I was proven correct.

This is both extremely frustrating, and a sign that I watch way too much television.

While I was sick last week, I started entertaining myself in my medicated state by checking out a great site, http://textsfromlastnight.com/. The site is exactly what you think it is. And yes, the texts can be pretty racy, so be forewarned.

Anyway, I was on the site just now, and I think I saw the greatest text I’ve ever seen there.

You can bet this will be one of the sites I frequent with exams coming up and me looking for new ways to continue my epic procrastination.

Walking home last night when I decided I couldn’t survive without getting something to eat. After all, the only things I had eaten all day were a banana and a chocolate chip cookie. Did I mention it was 10 PM?

I saw a Popeyes Chicken on Yonge Street on the way home, and there was a better chance of hitting the lottery than me not going in as soon as that happened - I love fried chicken, remember? As I waited in line, I noticed a young couple who were somewhat nicely dressed with a nice-looking middle-aged man who was in some shabby clothes. I thought it was an odd group to be hanging out together on a Thursday night. Then the young woman from the couple asked the man what he wanted to eat, followed by her saying something like, “I’ve never been in here before, so I don’t even know what to recommend.”

That’s when I realized the couple was buying a homeless guy his dinner. If you ignore the fact that I was picking up food from a place where people buy food for the homeless, so will I.

The homeless guy walked up to the counter and leaned over so he could see the options. He must have spent a good 30 seconds looking at the big menu. That’s also about the time I realized that he might not be able to read the signs, which was about when the man from the young couple thought the same thing and asked, “Would you like me to pick one for you?”

The homeless guy replied with the #3, and I think it’s about 50/50 that he just made that up because he couldn’t read the sign. A few seconds later, the woman nudged his partner to ask him what he wanted to drink, to which the homeless guy replied, “Orange. It’s my favorite.”

I still remember the exact way this homeless guy said it. The look on his face when he said it. Everything. Orange pop just made him the happiest guy in Toronto.

If I become rich, I think I’ll go buy a random homeless guy food regularly, just to see that look. Maybe that’s selfish because I’m really doing it for myself instead of the homeless guy - I’m not sure. But if I do this, I’m not doing it for the crazy homeless people. Only the sincere ones who look like they’re down on their luck.

Sometimes, the look on someone’s face is all you need to make your day.

Just woke up and turned on the TV. Maury Povich was on. Actual screen graphic during the show: “I lied when I said I went to buy a belt and left for 7 days.”

Speechless.

Tons of people have voicemail messages that begin with, “Hi, you’ve reached ____.”

Actually, I haven’t. I tried to reach you, but I didn’t actually reach you. Instead, I’m stuck talking to a pre-recorded message of you, which is most definitely not the same thing as reaching you. The message should be something like this instead:

“Hi, you tried to reach ___, but it didn’t happen. Instead, you’re left talking to a machine. Actually, you’re not even doing that yet. You’re just listening to a machine until this message ends. And then you still wouldn’t have reached me since you’ll just be leaving a message that might get to me in time, or it might not. Good luck with that.”

In other news, one of my biggest pet peeves is voicemail.

I went to the grocery store after class and noticed a sale - 3 cartons of my beloved orange juice for $10.

But since I was coming from class, there wasn’t enough room in my backpack to also carry the juice. So I reluctantly asked for a plastic bag, even though I despise the 5 cent plastic bag tax here in Toronto. But since it was 3 cartons of juice, the guy at the checkout asked if I wanted to double-bag it, which I agreed would be a good idea.

What did the final bill come to? $10.11.

Wait, what? How does that make any sense? $10 for the juice plus 10 cents for the two bags would equal $10.10. Why’s it $10.11?

Then I saw it. I have to pay a penny tax on the 10 cents I spent on plastic bags.

That’s right - I have to pay tax…on the plastic bag tax.