But all that mess isn’t the point of this post. It simply spilt out the ol’ noggin.

What you should note is that watching television in the age of the internets is an anomaly. Once upon a time, you could call Screech a dork or Brenda Walsh a bitty, and nobody cared, because nobody heard you say it. But people tweet such things now. And sooner or later it will come back and bite them, like it did me a few weeks ago. I shall explain.

I’m a big fan of the Travel Channel show Man v. Food. Don’t worry if you’ve never seen it, I’ll give you the brief synopsis. Adam Richman, a thirty-something, medium-build, male caucasian is the host of the half-hour program. Adam travels the country taking on eating-related challenges. Any given show matches up Adam’s digestive system against the spiciest foods or the biggest portions or both.

The first M v. F episode I ever saw was filmed in my hometown of Amarillo, where Adam visited three different restaurants. He took on the Hell Burger at Coyote Bluff (hell is evidently filled with cayenne and habaneros), the chicken-fried steak at the Stockyards Cafe, and the FREE 72 oz. steak at The Big Texan.

Let us focus but a moment on that last challenge. The Big Texan—a touristy steakhouse and motel found directly off I-40—is notorious for it’s FREE 72 oz. steak. Lots of asterisks surround that word FREE, though. By FREE they mean you have to eat the steak within an hour. And this monstrous slab o’ meat isn’t the only thing you have to put down during that timeframe. You also have a dinner roll, a salad, AND a baked potato to swallow. Once it’s all down, you then drop to your knees and pray the sins you’ve just committed doesn’t blow Uranus and your big-Ol’ Saturn ring to smithereens.

Back to Adam. Out of the 48,000 people who have attempted the challenge, only 8,000 have walked away with a FREE meal. My homeboy, Adam, conquered this challenge in under 30 minutes. Granted the record holder did it in 8 minutes and 52 seconds. So I’m not saying he’s insane. But why, WHY would somebody subject their bodies to such punishment? No doctor is going to recommend you take on this challenge. And eating this much food doesn’t prove anything to anyone, except that you might have an issue with food porn.

But I still love the show, and Adam is fun to watch. He’s fantastic as both host and eater. But still. That is a LOT of meat. (And that, is what she said.)

Anyway, after watching this particular episode of Man v. Food, I updated twitter with this:

Funny? Well, sort of. Not my best work. But regardless, about a week later this pops up on my Twitter feed:

Well slap my bottom and call me Goober, I would’ve never thought I’d get a response back from the real-life Adam. Geez. I do have to say though, I felt some level of pride that I had grabbed the attention of a lesser-known, television personality. It gave me hope that possibly one day it could be Bobby Flay or maybe James Van der Beek who randomly searches Twitter for their name and comes across one of my posts—at which point they are either offended or unhinged and promptly give me their stern rebuttal. These are the things my internet fairy tales are made of.

There is a lesson to be learned from all this though, kiddos. Stay in school, say no to drugs and be sure to tweet hard. And if celebrities are involved, I say tweet harder. Just watch out for their @ replies. They’ll get you every time.

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The Man v. Food Big Texan clip, for those who are interested:

For the technically inclined, this was shot on a Flip MinoHD and edited in iMovie ‘09. As if that wasn’t obvious.

About six-months ago I received an Amazon Kindle as a gift. Truth be told, I was skeptical about the e-reading device. I didn’t buy into its proposed ability to harness my attention away from paper-based books. There was always something about the Kindle that seemed too articificial; too cold and unromantic. But thanks to the Kindle, my reading life has been transformed. Truly.

I’ve loved reading ever since I was a wee lad. In fact, my fourth grade “girlfriend’s” dad was the first to slap the bookworm label on me. The son-of-a-spelling bee never even met me. Only saw me from a distance during PTA meetings.

Anyway, I won a contest that same year for reading the most books in my class. Our teacher, Ms. Robertson, pinned prizes on the bulletin board for the different winners to choose from. After I was declared the first-place winner (I read over 5,000 pages during the school year), I got the honor of selecting the very first prize. Somehow, out of everything up there, I picked a Rubik’s Magic. (Yes, your nerd sirens should be going off right about now.)

I picked the Rubik’s Magic over a bag of our teacher’s famous, freshly-baked monster cookies. Which went to Ryan Murphy, the second-place finisher and my elementary school nemesis. He sold them for a buck a piece and ended up making $20. A few weeks later, the unsolved Rubik’s Magic got crushed in my backpack. Fourth-grade-remedial bollocks!

The point is, I developed distinct reading habits during those formative years. Habits that are still with me today. For instance, before I ever begin reading a book, I like to hold it in both hands and feel the weight of it. Then, I study the design and layout, browse through the table of contents, thumb through the chapters and take in a few notes about the scope and structure. Even while I’m reading a book, I’ll often times pause, turn to the front cover, then to the back cover, and simply meditate on the entirety and significance of the book. I’ll picture the author as he or she wrote certain parts, think about their intentions, soak up the words that have been read thus far, and then ease back into the flow of the book.

Suffice to say, for me, reading a book is more than a process of digesting information. It’s an experience. Like eating popcorn at the movies or making out with my wife. Making up! I meant to say making up!

But there’s no two-ways about it, I’m in love with the Kindle. And I believe a majority of the reading I do in the future will be on an e-reading type device. To help explain why, here’s a rundown of the Kindle features I enjoy the most:

1. Quick access to your library. No matter where you are, you can read any book you’ve purchased for your Kindle.

2. No need to lug around books. Because I travel quite a bit, this is a big one for me. I always envision myself reading an assortment of books while I’m gone, so I compulsively pack a plethora of different titles — which most of the time never get pulled out of my bag. The Kindle, therefore, salvages my back from having to tote piles of books around.

3. Lookup words as you read. I don’t want to be stupid forever. Consequently, Kindle’s built-in dictionary feature is quite handy. The definition of most words is only a click away. Brilliant feature!

4. Make notes and highlight. This aspect is similar to what you can do with printed books, except for the Kindle now allows you to access your notes online. Suck on that, Gutenberg.

5. Buy books and start reading them within minutes. There are over 230,000 titles now available for the Kindle, and Amazon allows you to browse books directly from your Kindle. When you find what you want, you simply click purchase and then Amazon delivers it immediately to your Kindle via Whispernet. Only takes a few seconds. And it alleviates the need to visit the bookstore. You can suck on that, Barnes. You too, Noble.

6. Well designed. Turning pages is effortless. Battery life is respectable. And bookmarks, used diligently, become the crux of fluent navigation.

7. iPhone app! All Kindle content is accessible on your iPhone with this app. I’ve read chunks of books and even an entire novel on my iPhone. It’s easily one of my top 5 favorite apps.

For those who care, a selection of my Kindle books:

1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
4. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
5. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6. St. Augustine Confessions (Oxford World’s Classics) by Saint Augustine
7. Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition by Richard Foster
8. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
9. NIV Bible

Granted, I’ve only had the Kindle for 6-months, so my library is a bit thin. And one wish I do have is that Amazon gave you the option of buying the Kindle version and the book version for a bundled price. There’s something nostalgic about showcasing books on a shelf that I never foresee going away.

The bottom-line is, if you’re a reading fanatic, the Kindle should at the very least pique your interest. However, if you’re like me, it’ll downright tickle your Tom Clancy.

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Are you a Kindle owner or do you have questions about the Kindle? Feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear what’s on your mind.

What’s that? You want to know the purpose of this site? The PURPOSE?!? You can’t handle the purpose!

Listen, I’m not going to lie to you, I secured this tiny speck of cyberspace so I could enlighten, frighten and deconstruct some Michael Crichton. (My apologies, I rhyme when I get nervous. And evidently spout modified Jack Nicolson quotes.)

I don’t know what to say. People have personal sites. They use them to speak their minds and demonstrate their narcissistic tendencies. I want that too. If my musings aren’t something you’re interested in reading, then kindly bug-off. Because truth be known, if self-deprecating humor and witty observations don’t rev your engine, then by George no one can help you. And I mean NO ONE.

But don’t mistake this for a blog. This is not a blog. I told a friend recently (back me up, friend), that blogs are no longer hip. (The trendy use of the word “blog,” mind you.) Which means you won’t hear me say, “Hey, check out my blog, I just posted a blog post that mentions a blog comment on so-and-so’s blog.” Won’t. Happen.

Not sure yet what to replace the word “blog” with, though. Maybe brentonic? Or braingasm?A new braingasm is up over at BrentonEvans.com! Mayor Goldie Wilson says, “I like the sound of that!”

Most updates will center around my life: interests, observations, experiences, etc. And just so you know, I subscribe to the philosophy that good writing makes most things more compelling; even though, truthfully, it means absolutely nothing here.

But I must warn you, I have an indispensable predisposition towards humor. People call me light-hearted all the time, even though it makes me mad when they do. I have to point out that my heart weighs exactly the same as any other adult American male.

So, c’mon, I urge you, be a sport and give this site a good-old-college try for a few weeks. If you don’t like it, you can go back to your little Facebook quizzes and continue your lame, never-going-to-be-read, Twitter replies to @aplusk.

Speaking of tweets, you can follow me in shorter spells via Twitter and/or Facebook, if you’d like. Your satisfaction is not my number one priority, however.

Next post should be up soon. I’ve also got a couple of brand new features waiting to get some braingasm playtime. Those will roll out in short order now that the site is up.

Very truly yours.