Pure Horsepoop

I have absolutely nothing to say today. So I'll do what they do in Salem – ramble.

This is a very auspicious day. I should hold a contest to see if you know why, but that would be work and I'm not in the mood. Today is so auspicious because it's Prevuze' fourth anniversary on this website. Prevuze actually existed long before that, but you didn't know it. Then one day I got the bright idea to blog it and the rest is history.

Now, if you go to that very first posting, the date on it is January 1, 2005, which seemingly would make TOMORROW the 4th anniversary. Technically that may be true. BUT January 1, 2005 was a Saturday, and we posted the episode from the previous day. So pick your anniversary date.

OH, did I mention there was no feed today? NBC is showing hockey tomorrow, eh? So instead of showing an episode of DOOL no one will watch they decided to show a hockey game no one will watch.

Anyway, we started this thing four years ago. I'm not even going to link to that first episode. It's just... not worth it. You can find it if you want to. See, back then, we had a much smaller following and I used a lot of shorthand. So, for example, I still wasn't over the fact that John was Roman so I continued to call him John-Roman, which abbreviated to "JR" for typing purposes. Or there was Phillip. I couldn't remember his name. I mean, there was Patrick and there was Phillip. And both names started with "P" and for some reason I kept calling Patrick Phillip and Phillip Patrick. A mind is a terrible thing to challenge. I finally solved the problem by calling Phillip "Uniform Boy." Back then, whenever you saw him he was in his Marine uniform and I was sharp enough to make that connection. So we abbreviated that as "UB." Bonnie, for obvious reasons, was "Boob Woman" (BW) and Brady, because John was his father and John in my mind was also Roman, was Brady Brady (BB). In fact, for the first several issues we actually published a scorecard so people could tell who was who.

Back then, there were no pictures. I don't think pictures kicked in for about six months. We put them on the right side like we do now and left them there until we changed them or got tired of them. There was none of the "new pictures everyday" stuff we have now.

But the main difference was NO ITALICS. I just had characters saying whatever I wanted them to say just like I do now, only readers had to guess whether or not it was part of the episode. It was great fun for me but people just didn't appreciate it. So after a few episodes and several death threats, I decided it would be pragmatic (prudent?) to give readers a way to tell what was really from the show and what was pure horsepoop. So I "invented" italics.

Not long after that, the name abbreviations had to go. Scorecard or not, people just didn't get it. I actually found one thread where they were wondering if I was talking about JR Ewing whenever I mentioned JR (John-Roman).

So the abbreviations went, the italics came, we added a few pictures and voilà – Prevuze.

I don't know that I have a favorite episode. I suppose my favorite episode is whatever episode I just published. One that comes to mind that I thought would get a different reaction than it did is the "Cheech And Shawn" episode (CLICK HERE). In that one, big buddies Phillip and Shawn decided to bond by going to the pub and getting totally plastered together. So in the Prevuze episode, instead of having them get drunk, we had them smoking pot the whole time. We patterned a lot of the dialogue after Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke." It was also right after Jason Cook had been busted for possession in the Des Moines Airport, which was unfortunate for Jason and a gold mine of material for Prevuze. I thought readers might get upset at the drug references in that episode but they took it in stride.

I have too many "least favorite" episodes to count.

If you want my true opinion of the show, it has reached a level of suckage unprecedented in the world of television drama. The writers obviously have no long term plan at all. All they are doing now is trying anything they can – especially any combination of couples to see if anything helps the ratings, which, of course, it doesn't. On the other hand, this is what gives Prevuze its material.

I suppose I could now launch into a "how to improve DOOL" diatribe but why would I want to do that? If this show weren't a cartoon with live characters, I wouldn't have anything to poke fun at.

Instead, I'll just wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's Eve. Drive safely.

As far as I can tell, there is a show on Friday, so there will be a feed tomorrow and we'll be right here to bring you a recap of the crapertainment.

Did I mention there was no feed today?