Beard Present: The Gift that Keeps on Growing (Act 4: The Phantom Menace (It's the Fourth One, I Don't Care What You Nerds Say, It Came Fourth!))

(Boy character now has beard)

B: I don't feel as manly as I had expected....In fact I feel kind of itchy....and patchy....and hairy.

Girl character: Well what did you expect?

B: You know.....I'd have a beard.....and stuff....and it would make me manly.....and look wise....and make plaid shirts look cool on me...like Red Green or Camel Joe.

G: Joe Camel didn't have a beard or a plaid shirt.

B: He had hair on his face, ipso facto: beard.

G: You can always just shave.....it irritates my face when it rubs against me and I hate hate hate it.

B: Throw away your Orthodox Christmas present? I wouldn't dare. Need I remind you that both Orthodox Santa and Orthodox Jesus Christ have beards. And need I also remind you of my New Years Resolution? Now whenever I have a dilemma I gesture to my bracelet and follow its advice.

(Lifts arm to reveal WWOJCD bracelet)

Would Orthodox Jesus Christ keep his beard? You know what, I really think that he would.

Now, what should we have for dinner?....(looks to bracelet) Ummm, I'm going to have to go to the expert on this one.

(Pulls out phone)

Hey Kyle, can Jews and/or Orthodox Jesus Christ eat lobster?....Kyle I can't understand you, your mouth is too full of bacon. What? Bron't eat crobster? What? No, I didn't forget to charge your PSP screen, I know how bright you like it. Look, I gotta go.

LOBSTER IT IS!

Beard Present: The Gift that Keeps on Growing (Act 3: How Many Acts Do Plays Usually Have?)

Boy character: We could just celebrate Orthodox Christmas this year....by January I may have found a new job for present money.

Girl character: Do I look like a smelly Hungarian?

B: ....That would be offensive but I've never met a Hungarian person so I can neither confirm nor deny that stereotype.

G: Okay, how about this, we'll call a present truce for this year. If we both get nothing, then that's the same as us both getting something. Right?

B: WHAT! Maybe in Communist Hungary it is! Not getting something is called every day. Are you trying to say that everyday is truce Christmas? Are there 364 Truce Jesus' that I don't know about?

G: Okay, we could just get each other a "free" gift sort of thing.

B: Augh, not like those stupid coupon books that lazy guys get their girlfriends that promise things like "50% off your next I wuv woo".

G: No, I got one of those once and it was basically full of coupons that said "7 for 1 Sex for Foreplay." And the expiry dates weren't until 2020."

B: Actually those might not be such a bad..

G: NO...it can be like something you mentioned before, I can force you to come out with me and my friends to get to know them. Since I know you will hate doing it that makes it a present.

B: Only if I finally get to grow a beard in return.

G: No no no, I'll think of something else.

B: But I'm not working in an office now, this is the only time I can get away with growing one....TOO LATE YOU SAID DEAL.

(Boy Character runs away, how enthralling! Will this exciting tale wrap up before Christmas? MAYBE!)

Beard Present: The Gift that Keeps on Growing (Act 2: The Sordid Tale Continues)

Boy character: It's not the end of the world. We can dip into our New York trip savings if need be TO SAVE CHRISTMAS!

Girl character: No, absolutely not, I've been waiting to go to New York for over a year now, we already had to postpone it twice, the first time to pay for your surgery after you swallowed Lego.

B: Totally looked like a Sour Patch Kid wearing a plastic hat.

G: And then again after you fell for that Internet scam.

B: They said my Paypal password had expired and to tell them at Paypall.com what my new one should be! That was just some clever thieving on their part. Fool me once and all that.

I know the real secret reason you want to go to New York City that bad...to be the very first person to eat New York Fries while IN New York. But if you just let me blindfold you I can go to the mall Food Court and you can just pretend you're eating Fries in Manhattan.

I'll regale you with soothing New York sounds and smells. *Honk honk, beep beep. Aaaa-ooooga*

I will have to stop drinking so much water to get that authentic New York urine smell though.

(Ka-blam urine smell test reference all ova' your face KYLE.)

I mean, you did go to the Ontario College of Imagination and Imagination, it's high-time you put your degree in Fine Imagining to work.

G: No dipping into New York money, that's final.

B: Boooooooooooooooooooo! (Halloween ghost reference y'all!)

Beard Present: The Gift that Keeps on Growing (Act 1: In The Beard-ginning)

Girl character: Hey, how was work dear.

Boy character: Well....I've got good news and bad news.

G: Hmm?

B: So you know how you say I'm too busy with working, and work-related activities and my job to have gotten to know your girlfriends?

G: Ummm..yes.
B: And you know the old saying "In trying economic times the very worst workers are the first to go?"

G: I don't think that's a saying... Wha- What? You got fired? Right before Christmas?
{Editor's note: This takes place right before Christmas.]

B: Yes....but the good news is that now I can spend more time with your girlfriends! Wait a minute....

{Stage directions: Boy character comically realizes that the good news is in fact bad news FOR HIM! What a crazy twist to end the act! He holds a Christmas ornament in his hand so tightly that it breaks! {Editor's note: Still before Christmas}}

Feeling Like You Have Low Energy? CHANGE IT TODAY!

Are you feeling down? As if your body is running low? NEED AN ENERGY BOOST?????

Hi, I'm Dr. Brent Wilson and a common complaint I hear from my test subjects patients, is that they don't feel as if there body has as much energy as it used to.

THIS IS FALSE. Generally these patients are much fatter than they used to be. Their bodies are actually storing much more potential energy within those wobbly confines.

Burning all of the calories in a two hundred and fifty pound person yields enough energy to power a treadmill for 16 hours, long enough for 125 two hundred and fifty pound people to briefly walk on it before tiring. Or you could power an incandescent light bulb for 45 minutes....they are hilariously inefficient.

But what is the most efficient way to unleash this powerful source of energy we all have inside of us?

Not Exercise? NO!

Exercise? NO!

Using smaller, weaker people (Kyle) as kindling to light yourself ablaze? MAYBE!

The answer is simple: WHAT I UNDERSTAND OF SCIENCE! Your body contains 4.22 x 10²⁷ Hydrogen atoms. That's over a trillion times more than the number of stars in the Milky War. (Not hyperbole, if my terrible math is correct, that's seriously true.)

To most efficiently utilize the power of this energy all you have to do is convert those protium isotopes into deuterium and tritium. Which....sounds probably easy enough...lemme check Wikipedia....alright...umm heavy water....ooh CANDU reactor, Greg works there, maybe he knows something about this.

"Hey Greg, yeah.......yeah....oh really? Hahaha that is funny. Cool, oh, you're coming down when? Once sec, let me check my calendar. Let's see, let's see, umm the 18th? Looks good, I'm completely free that day. Oh wait, I'm looking in the wrong month, what a silly goose I am. August...uhhh August, ummm. here we are. August the 18th? Looks good buddy. Yeah, yeah, alright. sounds good. Talk to you later."

Where was I?

Right, so somehow convert the hydrogen in your body which are protium isotopes into deuterium and tritium. Now all you have to do is detonate a fission bomb, which if the movie War Games with Matthew Broderick taught me anything, are relatively easy to find.

So let the fission bomb compress and heat your fusion fuel filled body and KABLAMMO, that 250 pound man has just released the equivalent of 100,000 tons of TNT (again if my terrible math is correct.)

Who is low energy now? HUH? HUH!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Now, I am become Brent, the destroyer of low energy.

I Went On Another Trip, Yeah

(Sometimes I write posts and then forget to post the posts. So here's something I wrote six months ago about a trip I took eight months prior to that. HOT OFF THA PRESSES!)

San Francisco : Not as cool as Newmarket. Could Chicago: The Windy City, Old Smoke, Chi-Town, the City of Lights and Magic fare any better?

No, not really.

Comparison #1: CULTURE

A lot of people go to art museums and say: "Hey, I could do better than that!"

That's pretty presumptuous and pretentious of them isn't it? What assholes.

I don't say that. I say "Hey, I have already done stuff better than that and it's on display at the Mrs. Edwards Memorial Library in the first floor of Crossland Public School in stunning mid-town Newmarket, Ontario."

I don't have pictoral proof (there's no flash photography allowed in REAL art displays), but I painted a cactus in 1992. It's still up there. It's a pretty great cactus.

Maybe that boring, derivative American Gothic family should have grown some cacti on their hypothetical farm instead of just standing in front of their house.

NEWMARKET WINS THE CULTURE.

Comparison #2: CEMETERIES

Chicago: I wanted to see Al Capone's grave.

I did no research to find where his grave was.

There was a lot of graves in the cemetery. It was a big cemetery.

I could not find Al Capone's grave.

Newmarket: I know exactly where Ryan's grave will be.

NEWMARKET WINS THE CEMETERIES

Comparison #3: Secret Keeping

While walking through the park in Chicago we came across a press conference about to begin with a mysterious black tarp of mystery tarponing off the front of the display.

You want to know what the press conference will be about? YOU'LL NEVER KNOW! EVER! UNTIL IT STARTS! Or....until you walk behind the press conference.


It was about the White Sox playing the Cubs in Interleague play and the winner getting a trophy no one cares about.

But apparently it was a big deal...and a secret.

Our pointing and laughing somehow alerted the staff to cover the back of the display but not before we got a picture! TAKE THAT SECRETS.

Newmarket: I'm great at keeping secrets. I didn't mean to ruin Tom's surprise 13th birthday party in Grade 8...it just kind of happened.

And when Kyle decides to come out is completely up to Kyle, no one else.

NEWMARKET WINS THE ANNE FRANK AWARD OF SECRECY!!!!!!!!

Lemme just add up the results here.....alright......ok.....so it looks like.

NEWMARKET: 3~!

CHICAGO: 0

I hereby award Newmarket that lame Interleague trophy they are going to give the Cubs.

YOU'RE NEXT PARIS.

Chappy Bday Cryan

Happy Birthday Friend. Twenty one years, that's a long time to live.

Longtime me's will remember those immortal lyrics from Depression Obsession's hit song Happy Birthday Friend. (myspace.com/depressionobsession BUY A T-SHIRT!)

That was my present to Ryan five years ago today.

TODAY: Well, here's a picture that I can absolutely promise that pinkag did not help me with.
Also that speech bubble is supposed to read "I love Ryanandbrent.blogspot.com."

Not "I love ribbs.com"....although that sounds like a great site as well.

If you look carefully you can see that I got Kyle to sign it as well.


This picture references several moments from Happy Birthday Friend, which were themselves references from real life.

Bdayatrayal: RYAN DID NOT INVITE ME TO HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY PARTY!
I WENT OVER TO HIS HOUSE AND RANG THE DOORBELL AND THE PARTY WAS GOING ON AND HIS MOM HAD TO AWKWARDLY TELL ME TO GO AWAY!!!

THEN THEY WALKED TO THE PARK RIGHT BY MY HOUSE AND I WAS ON THE PORCH AND I STARTED CRYING! THIS IS THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THAT TERRIBLE DAY!

I got my revenge though.

Cryan: We were pretty certain there was a monster in the sewer system behind our houses. It made strange bumpy noises, coincidentally it made these noises whenever a car passed over it.
Graham also claims to have seen something with a crocodile mouth.

These claims remain unsussed as Ryan REFUSED to go searching through the wet, filthy sewer, probably because he was scared and would CRY!

He became Cryan from that day forth. Hahaha revenge is a dish best served dimly remembered twenty years later.

So....yeah, those are my main memories of twenty one years of experiencing Ryan birthdays.

Oh and that time I nailed him with a shaving cream pie as he got on the school bus.

But that tale is being saved for another time.

*Pours bucket of water on the fire and then chases his friends who left him all alone by the camp fire after the completion of the scary tales.*

The End of an Era

Many of you imaginary readers will be disappointed to learn that I officially purchased a cellular telephone device today, ending an incredibly long streak of getting by solely on electronic mail, handwritten letters, and the occasional landline based call.

It all started a few days ago, I was reading an article on teen “sexting” and I was so aroused appalled by this behaviour that I decided right there and then that I would get myself one of these fancy high tech cellular devices and see if I couldn't put an end to this phenomenon myself.

I imagine it will sort of be like that "to catch a predator" show with Chris Hansen, but instead of catching pedophiles trying to meet up with underage teens. I'll catch underage teens trying to send "sexts" to me. At the moment I'm unsure of exactly how I intend to accomplish that (or how my current girlfriend will feel about it) but I can't see any way this could possibly end badly for me.

I can only imagine how proud she'll be of me after finding my phone chock full of teenage girls in compromising positions.

It feels good knowing that I'll soon be making the world a better place...

My Dating In the Dark Audition Transcript

We all know that Dating in the Dark (Daten In het Donker) is not only a great television show, but it's also incredibly inspirational. I managed to get through to the third call-backs for season three which you can find transcribed below.

Producer: So, why do you want to be featured on Dating in the Dark?

Brent: Um, love. Yeah, love mostly. Like, I'm always being judged based on my appearance and not on my inner me. Like ladies yeah, I know, hot on the outside, probably a bad boy on the inside, but hey, don't like jump to conclusions alright? There's so much more to me than my abs.

P: Alright, sounds good. Just give Jill your number on the way out you sound like an ideal contest....

B: It's certainly not because I'm balding and that in pitch darkness girls could not see my hairline. It's mainly the stuff about abs and love.

P: You do know that at the end of the episode the girl you choose will get to see you in the light right? Trying to hide your male pattern baldness won't work for that long.

B: How long is it until the reveal?

P: Typically three or four dates.

B: Well I could still get quite a bit done in three dates if you know what I mean......do you know what I mean?

P: Not really....and if you get physical with a contestant won't she be able to feel your bald head?

B: Not if I'm standing on my hands..

P: Uhhhhhh.

B: Wait! I have a way to improve your game. One word: blind contestants! Dating in the Dark.....Forever. And then for the reveal you'll put an attractive mannequin head with hair for them to feel and a tape recorder inside with my voice talking about how blindness is great and that new sight granting surgeries are dangerous and unproven.

P: Yeah actually, don't worry about leaving your numb....

B: Wait, my voice is pretty grating, in that people tell me it sounds like running steel wool over a cheese grater. So, four more words: Blind and deaf contestants! And they just have to marry me and you pay for their caretaker and teach them about water and they are hot and like me. I call it: Dating in the Dark....Forever, And Also the Dark is Soundproof.

The producer got kind of off-topic from there, but all in all I think it went well. I haven't heard anything yet, but in the time waiting I've become suspicious that they will put me on regular Dating in the Dark instead of DITD...FAATDIS.

So I've stolen Ryan's tranny defense technique and applied it thusly: I will yell "HEADS UP" and chuck a softball at my date. If she can hear me, and/or can catch the ball I will be fairly certain she is neither blind or deaf.

CHECK ME OUT THIS SUMMER ON ABC! THURSDAY NIGHTS AT 9 PM EASTERN WHICH IS 8 PM CENTRAL FOR THOSE OF YOU TRAPPED IN WINNIPEG.

Fun Facts from Thailand!

I had a dream last night that I had to babysit my managers pet walrus and after tucking it into bed I read it some stories from this blog. Upon waking up I was like “oh yeah…I have a blog, maybe I should write something in it once in awhile”

So without further ado, I give you Fun Facts from Thailand! As many of you imaginary readers know, I spent a couple of months in Thailand or as it is sometimes known “the land of Thai” many adventures were had and many lessons learned…

Fun fact #1: Asking a girl if she’s actually a man is maybe not the best thing in the world to do (though highly effective because an actual women will be highly offended). The actual number of ladyboys there is greatly exaggerated, but you can never be too careful especially after 28 hours of flying followed by mistakenly buying a 3 litre “tower of beer”. An effective (and less offensive way) of determining gender is asking them to throw a baseball (tough to find in Thailand) do they throw like a girl? If yes, then you’re probably ok!



Fun fact #2: Monkeys don’t care about you, sure they’re cute and all but they’re only using you for your delicious fruit based drink. Upon arriving in Railai, I did a little exploring and soon encountered a small group of monkeys, though they were shy at first eventually they came close and even began to climb on me. “Wow, I thought to myself, monkeys are awesome” and soon I had envisioned running away from home and joining these group of monkeys forever. Unfortunately the feeling wasn’t mutual, I soon discovered that these monkeys didn’t care about me and my feelings at all, I was just being used for my delicious fruit based drink and the mango peels in my backpack. Once they were gone so were the monkeys…


Fun Fact #3: Accidentally smoking opium while being lost in a jungle in northern Thailand is a really neat life experience, but maybe not the best idea in the world considering there are countless numbers of animals there that have nothing better to do than to kill you for fun with their exotic venoms.

Fun Fact #4: Trying to buy a pirated DVD of the movie ‘despicable me” in Bangkok is extremely difficult. Everyone will assume you are trying to buy porn, persistence is key…


I couldn't find any pictures I took that were related to that fun fact so here's another beach!!

Do pies use iPod?

I had a terrible fever and in my delirium became briefly obsessed with making my own palindrome.....my first delirious attempts were....well, delirious.

"Was a sub radar on rats star no radar? Bus a saw!"

But after literally minutes of plugging away, I did it, as seen in the title!!!!!

I google'd it and no results came up, which of course means it's my trademark forever.

I also own the Russian confirmation that "Da, pies use iPad."

Lastly, I totally own the words that make Paul do my favourite of his dance moves: "Lethargic Guy Who Is Also Covered in Honey So, Like He Moves Really, Really Slowly" at the bar: "No slo-mo, no Molson.")

Zomb-Finale

Ryan wouldn't voluntarily give his blood and all my mosquitoes were dead!

Luckily I had yet still a final, spectacular plan that could not fail. All I had to do was take advantage of Ryan's well-known love of swimming and my well-known hobby of rearing lampreys.

"Ryan, would you like to go to the Ray Twinney Funtime Sports Complex & Swimming Centre with me?"

"Yes, friend. That sounds great."

And so we were off, Ryan took a dip in the pool totally unsuspecting of the dangers awaiting him.

He swam a couple laps, went down the water slide, and looked at, but did not venture to the deepish part of the pool where the diving board is. Then as he was toweling off and getting changed, I chloroformed him and dumped my lampreys onto his prone body!

When he fell unconscious his towel remained cinched at all times, so it is totally not gay that I did this. I would have had to uncinch it, take a glimpse, then try to recinch it to do anythin.........oh wait the lab results from the blended lampreys' is in.

Hmm....according to this Ryan does not have any zombie blood in his body....I guess he was right all along. But wait....that's strange, while his zombiecron levels are zero, his fishiecron levels are off the charts! Ryan is at least 99% fish, which helps explain why he loves swimming and is so good at swimming.

POKEMON RESPONSE: As for my only knowing the first 151 Pokemon my response is simple. There ARE only 151 Pokemon. The rest are lies that were invented by science and I know this because none of them appear in our Holiest of Texts (that Pokedex book CJ has). How would Noah have fit Wailord on the Ark? Or have stopped Pineco from being devoured, because most Pokemon are herbivores and bugs that are pinecones are delicious?

It makes no sense! And like with all religions, we only accept things that make sense.

Setting The Record Straight

I guess I should preface this entry by clearing the air about my death....There's a lot of misinformation flying around this site, and I'm here to set it all straight.

1) I went to Thailand: This is true, I know I should have let you imaginary readers know beforehand but I just didn't know how to say goodbye...

2) I am now a zombie: partly true...while I did contract Solanum while exploring caves near the burmese border (pictured above) upon arrival at home I sacrificed my sugar glider to Chrolrotagar and my zombiecron levels are practically normal. This is also explains why I'm so bad at killing zombies in COD, it's not that I'm bad at the game...it's that part of me still relates to those zombies and I just don't feel right killing them.

3) Brent is Ernie and I am Bert: False...I can only assume this was a typo by Brent

4) I am poor at Gemcraft, Street Fighter, and Pokemon: False...In fact it's quite the opposite. I am a street fighter/gemcraft/pokemon master (not to mention a hamster flying master). I didn't want to bring this up, but did you know Brent isn't even familiar with the newer generation pokemon???

I'm sorry...that was a low blow.

Now I'm Confused

So, Ryan might not be dead.

Although I imagine our imaginary blog readers wouldn't be surprised if they found out that Ryan's been dead for two years!!!! Ba-zing-a! (This is a reference to his infrequent blog posts, not to his actual death, which is slightly less funny.)

But last week's blog post from his log-in showed that either Ryan is alive, or he gave my old vacation buddy Dave Jett his blog log password.

OR Dave Jett somehow guessed the answer to Ryan's secret password retrieval question.

Q: "Why do the taste of pennies remind you of losing a tooth?"
A: "Because my teeth are made of pennies."

Teeth references are great. Teeth, tooth, teeth. I think the best part about having children is yanking baby teeth out of their skulls. At least, that's what my Mom seemed to take most joy in.

Another reason I think Ryan might be secretly alive.....I saw him a few weeks back and we talked about his "trip" to "Thailand". And then we talked on the phone about the Raptors and the Blue Jays and Vernon Wells, and CJ's homework, and fake strawberry flavor, and how he's totally Bert and I am totally Ernie.

But the questions mount. If Ryan really went on a trip, why didn't he tell me beforehand or at least leave a note?

Did Ryan's sugar glider Mittsy really die of "starvation" or did Ryan sacrifice it to Chrolrotagar to regain life and spend all of eternity toiling as a zombie?

When I asked if I could have some of Ryan's blood, he asked "Why?" I think the fellow doth protest too much (Shakespeare reference, boo-yah!) Don't be soooo defensive, sounds like someone doesn't want me to test their blood for zombiecron levels.

THEN when I trained some mosquitoes to draw Ryan's blood while I distracted him with video games, Ryan murdered the mosquitoes with his hand! How many animals have to die so you can live on zomb-Ryan?

ALSO, Ryan was really bad at killing zombies in the zombie killing video game. This isn't really evidence of anything though, Ryan is also bad at crafting gems, fighting streets, and catchin' 'em all.

Dear Ryanandbrent.com

I’m sending you this article in hopes that I may too be considered for the opening left by Ryan. Though my name is actually Dave, my middle name is Ryan and I’m hoping that, combined with my superior writing skills just might get me consideration…

Submitted for the approval, of the ryanandbrent society, I call this story (throws sand into fire) “The tale of the quarterbacks sister”

Now unlike the real Ryan who always amazed me with his ability to come up with new and unique story idea’s I’m taking this baby straight from today’s news…Here

Now I know that we’re all tired of Brett Favre stories, but c’mon this is good stuff here…and before I start let’s all just clear the air here, I know what everyone’s thinking….

Brett Favre’s sister is a smokeshow…

now obviously I don't mean that in the way most of you are thinking...I mean just because she was arrested for meth doesn't mean she smokes THAT much, I meant in in terms of her looks. Her chestnut hair, the way she wears it in that "I just got arrested in a meth bust and I don't care how it looks" kinda way (even though you just know she spent all morning on that). Her ghostly pale complexion, (I wonder if that's how ghost Ryan looks now) and those deep sunken beautiful eyes that seem to look directly into your soul...

dammit I'm distracted now...how did Ryan do this on a bi-monthly basis???

All I can think about is how bad I want to piledrive Brett Favre's sister, what's that...you're unfamiliar with that position??

well lucky for you readers I'm not afraid to push the limits...check out the ol' piledriver Here

...I'm so sorry

-Dave Jett