And So le Gastro Comes to Our House

When one of the parents works at a children’s hospital, we are reminded every day how lucky we are to have a child who’s never had a serious health issue of any kind since he was born. He’s had colds, pink eye, and the odd fever but nothing too serious. Just this morning, his mother was telling a co-worker that he has never so much as thrown up in his entire life.

So of course, as she was saying this, he was at day care, throwing up.

Our son has, as we call it in Montreal, “le gastro“. Or so we think.

So he’s home with his mother, having an easy day with all the juice and Dora he could ask for. Apparently, this bug is going around and is a little nasty. I might wager, however, that his is fairly mild. His fever went down as soon as he took some Tempra and, as far as I know, he hasn’t thrown up since this morning. And for a sick kid, he seems in pretty good spirits. Hopefully by tomorrow this will pass and he’ll be back to his old self.

Well, he’d better get well because we’re hosting another one of our President’s Choice catered Christmas parties on Saturday night and it would be terribly rude of him to make us go and cancel.

Todd and the Book of Pure Evil

“It’s indicating that you’re about as smart as a monkey but, sadly, not one of those smart monkeys.”
Atticus Murphy, Guidance Counselor.

I’m not sure when it happened but the low-budget Space channel original programme, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, has quietly become one of the funniest things on TV. The series fallows high school metalhead Todd who, aided by his friends, must save the school from an all-powerful book that grants your darkest wish but with disastrous results. So deadly are the consequences that the school janitor has a special “blood mop”.

I’ve no idea what kind of audience it gets but whatever it is, it should be larger. Of course there are several hits against it:

• It’s Canadian. While no place names are ever used, the show is filmed in Winnipeg and the teenagers are closer in spirit to Terry and Deaner of Fubar than, say, Bill and Ted. I wasn’t sure as I was watching the thing where it was supposed to exist until a character made a reference to poutine. That gave it away. And there’s just something about Canadian headbangers that sets them apart from their American counterparts. Not sure what it is, though. Maybe it’s the plaid flannel. As funny as it is, it’s hard to get English-Canadians to watch their own programming.
• It’s on cable.
• It’s a genre show.

There’s also an ongoing story arc involving the evil cult trying to get its hands on the book through its agent, the school guidance counselor, as well as Jenny’s, Todd’s crush, attempts to find her missing parents who were investigating the book at the time of their disappearance. But really, it’s Evil Dead in high school. What else do you need to know?