#132 - & now for something completely different.

& now for something completely different: an eat!drink!snack! blog entry about something funny. by something funny, i don't mean that i'm actually going to break tradition & be funny. i mean that i'm going to talk about monty python's flying circus, the uproariously funny sketch comedy show which made its debut on bbc one forty years ago this past monday. i first started watching the show when i was a teenager & although a good amount of it was british stuff i didn't understand, i fell in love with it. as a result of repeated viewings, the show's dry, ridiculous tone is probably responsible for about 50% of my sense of humor. i'm sure there are countless others out there who would say the same thing.

& now for something completely different: a man with three buttocks...a man with a tape recorder up his nose...a man with a tape recorder up his brother's nose. have you got anything without spam? i don't care how fucking runny it is! i'm a lumberjack & i'm ok. i fart in your general direction. what did you expect? a spanish inquisition? strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! know what i mean? wink wink. nudge nudge. say no more.

& now for something completely different: career paths! when the show eventually came to an end in 1974, its members ended up taking a divergent set of paths. between fawlty towers & a fish called wanda, john cleese arguably became the most famous of the troupe, but through a string of awesome directorial efforts, terry gilliam has given him a run for his money. terry jones has done a bunch of writing & michael palin ended up doing a number of documentaries, a ton of which have been travel docs. graham chapman did a bit of acting after python, but died at age 48, twenty years ago this past sunday. eric idle is probably best known for creating the rutles & spamalot, the broadway production which supports the theory that he's over-commercialized the show over the years.

& now for something completely different: a smart idea on the internet. back in november of last year, in response to the wide array of monty python videos up on youtube, they decided to set up their own youtube channel & put up a bunch of the best monty python clips. all they asked from fans was that in exchange for them putting a bunch of high quality clips on youtube for free, the fans go out & buy their DVDs. as a result, sales on amazon rose by 23000%. i didn't even know that percentage existed. anyway, in this brand new interweb world, they pretty much put to bed the fear that giving your content away for free would kill sales. you hear that, record industry?

#132 - & now for something completely different.
snack: peppercorn ranch sun chips
drink: hawaiian punch fruit juicy red



this weekend, i picked up a big ol bag of peppercorn ranch sun chips. they're a new flavor for sun chips, along with roasted sweet chili & spicy chipotle, neither of which i've come across in my snack travels. as part of sun chips' initiative to move to a 100% compostable bag by next year, this bag of peppercorn ranch came in a bag made from 33% recyclable materials. i don't have an active compost bin or anything, so once they go fully compostable, my bags will likely linger in a landfill for years, but it's still a pretty cool idea. 

as for the chips themselves, the flavor's good enough to put them in a tie with french onion for the coveted "tastiest sun chip" award. i love pretty much anything with ranch on it, but the peppercorn combination really works for me. like other sun chips, they're flavorful, but not too flavorful, making it possible to eat a ton of them at once without making yourself sick. as such, by monday night, i'd finished off the entire bag pretty much single-handedly. any chip that's both healthy and supports my gluttonous tendencies is ok in my book.

since i've been in a hawaiian mood lately on the blog, i decided to take a trip down memory lane this weekend with a bottle of hawaiian punch fruit juicy red. back in the day, i used to drink a good amount of the stuff & generally, it came in a large aluminum can you had to use a can opener on. old school! it's not as good as i remember it being though. it's full of sugar & is basically the fruitiest fruit punch available, but i guess to my parents, at the time, if i was drinking hawaiian punch, at least i wasn't drinking soda.

as a kid, i was inspired by hawaiian punch's commercials, which featured punchy, the hawaiian punch mascot. in the ads, he'd walk up to this other character (opie) & ask him "how about a nice hawaiian punch?" since it's impossible to resist a nice hawaiian punch, opie would always answer in the affirmative & punchy would sock him one. aided by that phrase, i've dealt a lot of bruises myself over the years...good times.

hawaiian punch updated the punchy character in 2003 & now they're all 2006 style on their website, which is laid out as punchy's pad. while he lounges on the couch like a lazy hawaiian, you can get all interactive with a game called "punchy's pursuit," where punchy tosses bottles of hawaiian punch & other debris onto the street from the back of a truck & you have to clean up after him. given their environmental leanings, i'm sure the people at sun chips are quite unhappy about punchy's wanton littering. not me though. i love that hawaiian's mischievous capering.