Hey, I don't know if there are any teenage-type folks who read this blog, but if you're out there, listen: When I was in high school, we didn't have YouTube! If I wanted to download a grainy, eight-megabyte video of the Foo Fighters’ "Everlong," I had to be connected to the internet for four hours! And if I wanted to watch They Might Be Giants' TV appearances, I had to send cash to a strange man who would send me a bootleg VHS tape! Now, you might be thinking that only a strange man would deal in VHS in the first place, but that's still how things were done back then! We had morals! We had low gas prices! We had to go to more effort than typing "TMBG" into a search bar to get our video content!

Yes, I loved They Might Be Giants, so I ordered not one, but two of these bootleg tapes. And on one of them there was a video of They Might Be Giants performing on the show Viva Variety. At the time, however, I had no idea that Viva Variety was a comedy show, or that it was comprised of members of the fantastic comedy troupe The State. Although I was a budding comedy fan, as far as I was concerned, the only good comedy shows that existed were Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The Kids in the Hall. I didn’t bother looking for anything else; I thought that most comedy out there was tripe. Worse off, the people who made other comedy shows just didn't get it. They didn’t understand.

Recently, however, I was listening to the Sound of Young America's interview with Kerry Kinney-Silver, Ben Garant, and Thomas Lennon, who were members of The State and creators of both Reno 911! and Viva Variety. During the interview the folks started discussing Viva Variety, and I quickly realized that I missed a gem in high school. Not only did the show seem fantastically hilarious, it sounded like what I would make if I was given a show. From Wikipedia:

Viva Variety was a television show on Comedy Central satirizing European variety shows with characters from the Eastern Bloc. The show starred Thomas Lennon as Meredith Laupin, Kerri Kenney as the former Mrs. Laupin, and Michael Ian Black as "your cool-ass pal" Johnny Blue Jeans.

Fakey accents? Check. Ability to make up fake history and products? Check. Not surprisingly, I've been watching a lot of clips of the show on YouTube recently, and a couple of days ago, I found the one that was on my They Might Be Giants bootleg VHS. I'm not much for unnecessary nostalgia (seriously: please shut up about the 80's), but watching this video gave me a warm, full-circle sort of feeling:

Recently Adam over at The Amateur Gourmet posted episodes of Posh Nosh, a BBC comedy that skewers upscale cooking shows. It's amazing:

Yup.

I keep meaning to write about my friend Chris's excellent blog, 7:21 p.m. If you live in the Philadelphia area, you might recognize Chris as the guy who lives in a truck (he's since changed to a van). On the 7:21 p.m. blog, Chris writes about what's going on for him every day at precisely 7:21 p.m., when the alarm on his watch goes off. Right now he's on a solo bike ride to rural Quebec, and he's writing really interesting, honest stuff about the experience. Read it.

I know what you've been thinking: "Sure, I can watch Meg's comedy sketches to distract me while I'm at work, or I can play a time-wasting internet game. But isn't there some way to combine the two?"

Yes there is! I recently did some voice-over work for a game on the Discovery Channel's website. Now you can listen to me help you through a puzzle-based murder investigation. The game is called Trace Evidence, and you can go play it right now.

I just got back from a week-long trip to Chicago. Here's a picture:

More shortly.