It Was the Final Countdown

For a few years quality television was gone. That's when reality shows blew up in our faces. I didn't give a flying rat's butt. If anyone's seen the PBS reality series, though, tell me those aren't the best. Then finally there was a show worth watching but naturally FOX would come to pull it off the air. Arrested Development. Uh-huh, you know what I'm talking about. Come on - When Gob's magic act is to become his dead father's body and he's showing off his moves to Europe's Final Countdown? That's classic.

I was going abroad for my first time, to the land of 'roos and dingos. I thought I had the perfect plan. There was a place in Santa Monica that sold SIM cards for Australia. Shipping it to New York would have cost me fifty bucks. Now since I was flying into LAX anyway, I'll bus it to Santa Monica, get the SIM card in person, save a little bit of cash, go to the beach, and wham, back to LAX for my flight across the international dateline.

The plan was perfect in theory. I had four months worth of materialism on my back and an address to get to. Oh, but forget the map of the city because I was looking for adventure. FYI, that's the story and I stick to it. The adventure was hiking straight uphill eight miles, not realizing buses were running in my direction, finally arriving to the place, then paying the exact same price I would have paid if I had it shipped. Thank you California sales tax. A good time for all. But at least this was topped off by an entertainer impressing a crowd with a sphere (sounds better than saying "ball" doesn't it?) on Santa Monica boulevard - set to what song? The Final Countdown.

But the story doesn't end there because four months later when I get back to LAX, I spotted the back of a head that looked very familiar. Unmistakably, it was the back of the head belonging to Will Arnett - the one we call Gob. And being a good fan I of course interrupted his conversation. You know what, there's nothing better than 1) Freaking him out the wicked, uber, bad, basically nasty sunburn on my lips from hiking Mt. Ruapehu in New Zealand and 2) Putting my damn foot in my mouth when I congratulated him on the network's decision to renew the show, to which he informed me that actually, they just cancelled it.