So while I was in Canada a few weeks ago - Rob tells me that he has great news. He has two tickets to go to a screening for potential shows to be seen in Canada. They need viewer opinions and do I wanna go? An opportunity for my heckling to be actually an important research item instead of just shooting off my mouth at the TV? You bet!!!

And what better person to go with than Rob. Rob and I have discovered our mutual love for reality shows when Survivor came on last Summer and when I first visited him in Canada - we watched the Survivor II series. Whenever we watch television - I am reminded of the two old guys on the muppet show that reside in the peanut gallery. We crack jokes and only we seem to understand our own sick humor. I dreamed of a day where I would one day be valued for my crassness and that day came at the right time - when i could share it with a fellow show basher.

We get to the hotel ballroom where they are seating us like restaurant patrons. I apparently had all the right characteristics for someone they want to be rating this drivel. The guy taking tickets asked me where I worked to which I replied, "I dont' work." They seemed really excited to meet an actual slacker ("good, that's wonderful") and like a good host showed us to our seats. I never knew that sloth was such an endearing quality till now.

We look around and see that the rest of the people there look like reject extras from the Golden Girls. Then the ones that didn't fit the nursing home bill were pre-teens driven to the hotel by eager parents. I wondered what group they had slotted Rob and I as - we certainly didn't fill either group. While waiting for the announcer to tell us what's up, we had to fill out these silly polls that looked disturbingly like space paid for by advertisers. I guess they gotta put the ads in somewhere. We dutifully filled out our questionnaires and patiently waited.

The announcer (which was disturbingly too similar to any of the cast of "Monty Python") told us something about the first show we would be seeing (we were to be seeing two shows and some commercials). This first show was called "Soul Mates" and the premise was some sort of weird re-incarnation thing. In the words of two syllables - It Sucked. The plot was weak, the characters feeble, and from what i could tell - this was a four hour show condensed into 50 minutes. When it was time for us to give our opinions - Rob and I were soooo prepared to flush this one down the proverbial toilet. We were given multiple choice questions and we answered them as bad as we could to get our point across - this would put an insomniac into a instant coma.

Then the announcer gave us the rundown on the next show we would be seeing. When he told us if we remembered the show "Rhoda," I looked at Rob and said "stop, right there - I dont' even need to see it." Rob immediately apologized. "Dude, I am soooooo sorry." And I was right, the show seemed to be from 1987 - when Valerie Harper was still young enough to play a mom to a 20 year old and big hair was in. They said that they were trying to see if they could bring back this show with the original cast. I am not sure that some of the original cast is still able to walk on their own or even alive for that matter for them to do that. No matter - our opinions were once again assessed - and we impressed upon our papers that this was, indeed, some crack pot idea that someone would be fired over if shown on the airwaves.

The next part was my favorite part. We get to view commercials and instead of filling out a multiple choice paper, we are encouraged to "feel free to write what we want - there are no wrong answers." Rob and I grinned like mad idiots on that one. No wrong answers, huh? We wrote every thing that came to our heads on those commercials. The mindless spew that they showed us came flying back to them on our surveys. My favorite one that we watched and commented on was the diaper commercial to which I wrote "I hate kids." Rob's was better with his one word masterpiece of "craptastic." I am sure that our answers will be disregarded - but nonetheless will be reviewed by someone other than our own senses of humor.

We giggled profusely when we got out of there (it was so hard to be quiet and keep a straight face - we were dying in there) recapping the truly foul moments of the evening, but we felt that our work here was justified. Me and Rob took a bullet in the face by watching this crap for you guys and making sure it doesn't get aired. If it does, i have sufficiently warned you about the show ahead of time so that you have ample time to switch channels. In short, this was our good deed of the year. It felt good doing this kind of charity work.

Just so you know, my listbot is gone. I didn't save the list of everyone that wanted to be notified of when I update this so just click and send this to me and let me know if you want back on the list when i get one set up. Sorry about that.