BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Well, actually, I have been, but that’s a different story.

So, why do I want to be on TV? For the fame? The glory? The hot chicks?

To be honest, none of the above.

Let’s step back for a minute. Not to TV land, but to early last week in Murvland. For reasons that don’t bear exploring at this juncture I had to make a mad dash to the hardware store during a downpour. For yet still other reasons that don’t bear exploring, while in the parking lot of said store I fell. I fell hard. I fell hard three times. Onto concrete. Wet concrete. Hard, wet, concrete.

Okay, you get the idea.

Anyhow, I was bruised. I have a purple hip and a purple stomach where I fell on top of the item I was carrying, (yeah, for a dyed in the wool Browncoat to have a “purple belly” it really sucks). I also have shattered cartilage in one knee, and a lot of achey muscles. I’m not as bad off as I was last week, but I’m still a bit sore here and there.

Now, this incident didn’t stop me from going on with my life. I didn’t end up in the hospital or anything that drastic. However, at 46 and some change one does not just get up, brush off, and go on as if nothing happened. No, that is reserved for the 20 year olds… So, while I was still moving about, it was slow going, with a lot of pain. Yes, I groaned, moaned, and even whined a bit.

What in the name of Pete does this have to do with being on TV, you ask…

No, there weren’t any cameras in the parking lot filming me… Well, actually I don’t know if there were or not. Maybe there were and I just haven’t seen the Youtube video just yet. But, that’s neither here nor there… I fell, I hurt, I moved slow…

Now, on TV it is a different story. I watched the season finales of Bones and House the other night and discovered that the world inside the tube is radically different. People almost completely heal within hours or even minutes. For the truly horrid injuries it might take a couple of days, but that’s just for the REALLY life threatening stuff.

For instance – On Bones one of the main characters took a penetrating round from a revolver. I didn’t get a good enough look at it to say what caliber, but it was at a minimum a .38. Moreover, the wound was in his right chest. He wasn’t wearing body armor or a bullet proof vest either. He bled a lot. He passed out. We didn’t know whether or not he would survive. Something on the order of one week later (maybe even less) he was not only up moving around, but tackling bad guys and waving his arms about. The only evidence of the wound was that he was wearing a bandaid. Other than that, he was just fine and dandy. Now, I won’t even go into the rest of the stupidity that tried to pass for a storyline in that episode, but suffice it to say, unless Patrick Duffy shows up in a shower at the beginning of the first episode next season, they’ve lost me as a viewer.

On House we had yet another semi-miracle. Of course, Hugh and the crew perform those weekly, but this one was really cool (in some ways, literally). A patient who had been severely injured in a bus crash, then purposely put into hypothermia, including filling her lungs with slurry, is warmed up and re-awakened (basically so they can tell her she is dead as soon as they turn off the bypass machine or in a few hours, whichever comes first). She lays on the bed and carries on a clear and coherent conversation with her boyfriend so they can say goodbye. The fun part about this (besides the enormous technical inaccuracies that a layman could spot) was the fact that this two part episode only spanned something like 24 hours in TV time. What I found really amazing about this is how clear, coherent, and without pain she was. You see, when my appendix burst several years ago I spent a week in the hospital. I won’t go into the gory details, but I wasn’t clear and coherent for at least 3 days. I wasn’t without pain for better than a week. After what she endured, and with the limited time frame, I’m thinking maybe a handful of “ouches” and an “I forgot what I was saying, sorry about that,” or two would have been in order.

So, you see… That’s why I want to be on TV. It obviously doesn’t hurt as much when you get injured, and apparently it doesn’t hurt anywhere near as long. I could definitely do with the not hurting.

But, even if I don’t get to be on TV, I suppose I will never write for it either. Why? Because, in my mind if I write something it has to make sense. Sure, even I have elements to my stories that require suspension of disbelief, but you are only allowed just so much of that before suspension turns into “you’ve gotta be effing kidding me…”

You see, suspending it is one thing. Shooting it in the head, burying it in the back yard, and forgetting you ever saw it is completely different. It’s also not very nice.

More to come…

Murv

Nope. Not the electronic kind.

I’m talking about SPAM™ …Actually, since SPAM™ is ridiculously expensive (something like $3.29 a can… Probably due to the popularity of its name) I opt for TREET™ … Different company, same kind of can, same rectangular hunk of pressed pork leavin’s. And, it’s only 99¢ per can. Gotta love that.

Why? It means I can get three times as much of it.

Now here is the thing about SPAM™/TREET™/TRAM©/SPEET©. I love the stuff. Don’t know why. I mean, I definitely didn’t come from a well to do family, so I ate more than my share of the meat-like schtuff as a kid. Along with Vienna Sausages, which I also love. And, well, our psyche’s do tend to rebel and we normally eschew that which reminds us of harder times. But, the psuedo Virginia ham-like goodness of these canned pork leavin’s don’t really conjure a bad memory for me. In fact, it is more like a comfort food. It makes me remember a time when my family was still around – you see, with the exception of my sister and a few distant relatives, my ancestral family is gone. So, at this semi-advanced stage in my life I am a bit nostalgic. Therefore, I am all about things that remind me of better times, even if we were dirt poor and the times didn’t seem “better” when they were happening. Now, looking back on them, they seem like the best of times. But, that is the way with nostalgia, so who am I to complain?

Now, there are tons of ways to serve TREET™/SPAM™… Dice it up in some scrambled eggs. BBQ it. Roast it on a stick at a camp out. Hey, I’ve even diced it up and added it to homemade lentil soup. This stuff is so friggin’ versatile, I could go on forever. The possibilities are that endless.

However, I’ll stick to a single recipe…One of my favorite ways to enjoy these pressed and potted pork renderings is to slice the block into 1/2 inch thick slabs, sear ’em real quick in a hot skillet, then place a couple between two pieces of wheat bread with a slice of real American cheese. Now that, my friends, is good eatin’.

Okay, so I know you are wondering why I am devoting an entire blog entry to SPAM™/TREET™/TRAM©/SPEET©. Well, it’s simple really.

I love it. My wife and kid, not so much. The kid turns her nose up. My wife, on the other hand, will eat it if it is the only option and she’s really, really hungry. But, usually, she likes to point out that she doesn’t like it. Lately, she has even been on a kick of telling me that it is “bad for me”…

So, step forward in time a bit…I was having a potted-pressed-rendered-pork-leavin’s sammich just the other day. I was really enjoying it. The Evil Redhead proceeded to ask in a somewhat accusatory tone, “Do you realize how much saturated fat that stuff has in it?”

Honestly, I didn’t. So, I checked the can.

About 4g saturated fat and 6g of protein per serving (which is what I was having – 1 serving) 3g of carbohydrates in the form of sugars. It was about 130 calories, not counting the bread and cheese. Now, I will grant you, the entire fat content of a serving is 11g, but not all fat is bad. In fact, our bodies require it to function. And remember, only 4 of the 11 grams were saturated, which is the bad kind.

Now, the interesting thing about this is that when she asked the question, she was enjoying a serving of Strawberry Milkshake Flavored Malted Milk Balls.

Out of curiosity, I checked the box.

Her single serving was 180 calories, had 8g of saturated fat, 31g of carbohydrates (26 of which were in the form of sugar) and 1 whole gram of protein.

She was slightly stunned…

Based on what I was reading, her snack was worse for her than mine was for me. Not to mention, mine actually had significant nutritional value, whereas hers had next to none. I was also going to no longer be hungry. Her, probably not so much.

Of course, EK is about as big around as a stick, and her family is predisposed to live to 100 without any heart or artery disease, so the not so nutritional value of the malted milk balls probably didn’t hurt her one iota. But, hey, that’s not the point…We’re talking nutrition here…

You know, I think I’ll take the pork leavin’s over the candy.

More to come…

Murv