Tonight Dave and I were watching our favourite TV show, "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge." Easily the funniest show on television ever, it's a crazy Japanese game show where contestants play weird obstacle-course style games, which usually end up with them getting humiliated, injured, or both.

One woman fell down between these two giant rolling logs into a pool of muddy water, and in the process, she got pretzelled backwards between the logs until her foot almost touched her shoulder. Her other leg torqued out so that her knee bent in a very unnatural way.

"OH MY GOD!" we both shouted from our respective couches.

But she just got up, laughing, and splashed out of the water.

"How the hell could she walk away from that?!?" I said.

"Yeah," Dave said, "Japanese people are bendy."

Dave just came into the living room to borrow my phone. This is a big deal, because there is an ongoing rivalry over the quality of each other's cordless phones.

He gets better reception. Mine has call display and buttons that don't stick. We each like our own phones better.

But now his battery was dying, so he came to switch over to my phone.

"Oh-HO!" I said. "No way!"

As he retreated to his bedroom with my phone, he said, deadpan:

"If you were a gentlemen, you would trade batteries with me."

Maybe you had to be there.

Another lazy Saturday. In Vancouver, you feel less guilty about laying around doing nothing, because it's rainy all the time. Contrary to popular belief, not everybody here puts on a yellow slicker and goes splashing out into the slobber on hikes every weekend.

Today I made a bunch of phone calls, and it was fun. I don't know why I don't do it more often; it's great to talk to family and friends, and they obviously appreciate it. We've even got one of those all-you-can-eat evenings and weekends plans, so I have no excuse.

Maybe I'll make this a habit.