When you were young you played Snakes and Ladders, right? Well, this episode isn’t that. Here we get gritty insights from KJ and RJ on solving rat problems, and have to recover with the palate-cleansing pleasure of reading Listener Mail. Maybe it was all that talk about nasty smelly rodents that led us to it, but we end up talking about the movie “Terminator: Dark Fate” (spoiler alert: just say no) and what makes actors do bad movies. There are no real shockers here, but a lot of good mostly clean fun, so sit down, face off, and listen up!

Here we find reflective, philosophical Shed Dogs pondering the path to great art and good parking spots through visualization at the same time as they provide solid, practical information on important day-to-day challenges, like how to pronounce that fast moving COVID-19 strain name. From these dizzying mental heights we return to mere mortal levels and talk about what’s good on the streaming services these days. You’ll certainly feel embiggened after this 39-minute visit, ready to plunge whole-heartedly into your day, secure in your new knowledge in these important areas. It’s just what we do.

When Kirkland Body Wash is labeled 100% All Natural, think twice. When we tell you we are 100% all natural, take it to the bank. It won’t be worth much to all the newly created billionaires out there, maybe, but to you? Solid gold. In this episode, speaking of the nouveau riche, we discover what the Internet thinks KJ is worth, we hear about a CBC gig he has coming that should increase that yet more, we learn that Chromer of Duncan is very pleased with his new dentures but that KJ is unmoved by beautification efforts involving surgery. Pity. It’s a lemon-scented potpourri of opinion and information, and we invite you to just breathe it allllll in. Now, with jojoba!

Whether this reaches you before, during, or after December 25, and whether you celebrate it or not, the Shed Dogs wish you and yours a very merry Christmas with the promise of a great New Year to come! In this episode RJ pulls back the curtain on the surprisingly opulent lifestyles of certain foosball players, while KJ lets us in on the real highlights of going to a Canucks game. PJ drops some left-handed compliments and we promote some twitter accounts. We even manage to work in some more beloved Listener Mail, so have a listen while the video fire crackles on the screen, and slide right into the season with us.

Some edits may confound, but, hey, it’s waves from the shore baby.

Way back in Episode 113 we blundered our way through a non-explanation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Friend of the show Jesse of Montreal heard the call and sent the best-ever explanation and you get to hear it! Leigh of Courtenay heard us recommending a podcast whose ultimate author may have some credibility problems, and she responds, too. From handling bananas to NFTs to Canadaland to garburators and beyond, our listeners get involved in this episode and it’s great! We also get a nice helping of KJ’s quick snappers and spend some time on a bunch of movies and TV shows and stars, like Ted Lasso and Steve McQueen (and yes, it’s only here that such strange bedfellows make any sense). Have a listen, form your opinions, and keep sending those notes!

Join KJ as he takes a full-glam trip to New York City to join in on a Screen Actors Guild panel for Schmigadoon!, hobnobs with other famous people, sees several Broadway productions, and dazzles his daughter Lucy with the full weight of his fame and personality. He really does go where everybody knows his name, even in der Grosser Apfel! Bonus: dog medical procedures and waterproofing Gore-Tex.

Okay, look, we’ll level with you: sometimes we don’t plan out every minute of our content. Here in Episode 126 we have may actually workshopped some stuff for about a minute. Somehow, we got lost in KJ’s Short Snappers, which ended up covering everything from molecular weight to CB radio codes to strange sport sayings. We did manage to squeeze in useful counsel about credit cards and rewards programs and we ginned up some material on Costco-ing responsibly, but really… there is an abundance, nay, a plethora of odds and ends in here that will hopefully serve you well going forward… We just can’t say where it all came from.

This episode sees the mighty Shed Dogs preparing to break out onto the global stage at last. RJ reveals his quest to make the Canadian Senior Foosball team and represent Canada at the ITSF World Cup next year, while KJ prepares to jet off to the Big Apple on someone else’s dime to help represent Schmigadoon! at the Screen Actors Guild nomination process. We get another round of fun listener mail, and RJ makes a compelling pitch to one-up those Tesla owners by donating to a charity dedicated to reducing global carbon emissions. Meanwhile PJ continues to pitch dubious get rich quick schemes…

This week’s episode opens with some more excellent listener mail before taking a look at the charitable and not-so-charitable aspects of “We”, the organization which has given the Trudeau family and the Liberal Party fits. By fun contrast, we also have KJ’s fabulous Snappers, and as a bonus, Al Franken. We (and by that we mean us, not the Great White Saviors) have some sad tales of changing driving habits in our demographic, which are then redeemed by a story of great detailing services, which we heartily endorse. It’s an emotional rollercoaster with the proverbial happy ending. Okay, maybe not the proverbial one.

Not only do your Dogs spill the beans about “The White Lotus”, but we also have a good look at what happens when mercury is spilled these days—believe us, it’s not like Mr. Fodor’s Chem 11 class any more. We get to hear about RJ’s and Sue of Burnaby’s new Prius Prime, and in case their happy experience there whets your shopping appetite we also touch upon the coming wave of Chinese-made EVs. Warning: if you dislike spoilers and are planning to watch “The White Lotus”, maybe just accept our enthusiastic thumbs up and skip the last half hour or so here. We were very excited about that series…

In the virtual Shed the Dogs anachronistically yet contemporaneously predict the outcome of the 2021 federal election in Canada. What is RJ’s new doctor really trying to say in his introductory letter to his new patients? Spit it out. Now, cough! In an epic ’splainer PJ draws back the curtain on the mighty machinery of the electoral process and shares his new and hard-won insights into why federal elections cost so much. All three Dogs arrive at a hopefully clearer understanding of what is and is not insider trading. We close with a shout out to newlyweds Chroner and Deb of Duncan as well as a precise (if temporary) understanding of what the “cis” prefix means. This compact episode is a great deal when calculated on a per minute basis!

In our second of two special episodes with Nancy of New Westminster the dogs look at plastic scale models, Christopher Columbus, Constable Tom, phallic rockets, Nancy’s work for Peter Julian, and shopping for EVs. Hey don’t think this episode is not super special. It is, but our regular effusive blurb writer is otherwise engaged. Come for the Chevy Monza, stay for the Austin Mini conversion!

Hey everybody, here is our special pre-federal election episode, with Shed Dogs resident political correspondent Griffin of Burnaby. Herein we have 35 solid minutes of insightful political analysis about the debates, who the NDP will partner with, poll accuracy, electoral reform, the Greens, and the media, and we then close with projections for BC and Canada as a whole! Afterwards we follow up the interview with the usual inane drivel, including introducing one of Canada’s newest senior citizens.

Weddings and standup and ghosts, oh my! Friend of the show Nancy of New Westminster joins us in the Shed for our 120th episode, and it’s a fun one—including ghosts in the attic; officiating weddings, surprising mutual friends; what our forebears did and didn’t talk about and teach, comedy stylings, and a pile of great listener mail. We have viewing and reading recommendations, and find out that life in the arts isn’t all fun and games: there is such a thing as Emergency Acting and KJ tells us about his recent experience doing it. You’ll feel safe, informed and amused by the end, or possibly haunted, we’re not certain—but you certainly won’t be bored!

After a long and insistent letter writing campaign from our listening audience (there have been none), the Shed Dogs at last wade into the murky and roiling waters of The Great Marmite Debate. For three years now we’ve avoided this subject (it’s never come up) but at this point we felt we had no choice but to bring the full weight of our journalistic experience (we have none) to helping our faithful listening audience come to grips with the defining question - Marmite: Love it or hate it? We then remain in the Chateau to look briefly at robot lawnmowers (uncomfortably close to a brief segment on grass) and then move on to beautiful old trucks and where to get them repaired. But really this episode is all about the brewing byproduct commonly called Marmite. Clear your palates and plug in because It’s All Marmite All the Time Baby™!

The Dogs are in situ, in the real Shed, rising to the challenge of more Short Snappers from KJ at the same time as we get to read a bunch of listener mail. We also discuss a very cool recording of KJ’s and Shauna Sylvester’s fathers on the day they fired up a paving company. Plus our pithy observations on e-bikes, mercury, minstrel shows, JW predictions, and a short celebration of the state of health care in the West Kootenays ensue as we whisk you through a potpourri of palaver!

We’ve been treading a little lightly these last 16 months because we know you’ve been dealing with a lot. But now, we’re flush with vaccines and the gloves are off: it’s time to weigh in on the inflammatory question of what is an ideal banana, how do you go about eating it, and can it really fit in your pocket? We know you can do this. We also have an album review, some questions about whether public indecency has gone up, and an update from the dark recesses of KJ’s sleeping mind. On top of all that, we put Spam musubi out there, and RJ gifts us a delightful label for many of the YouTube channels we love: competence porn. Happy to see you!

Nancy of New West teams up via Listener Mail with RJ to settle once and for all what a saucepan actually is. That’s just one of several very satisfying emails we get to read here, and the mail leads to an even more satisfying kayaking travelogue shared by Ogre of Nelson. Since all that exercise left us mentally razor sharp, KJ puts the other two Dogs to a stern test and kicks off his new Short Snappers feature. Finally, RJ presents us all with The Best Graphic Explanation of Internal Combustion Engines Ever. Warm and aromatic, yet explosive and powerful, this episode has it all!

Normally when we say “greatest idea ever” it’s an ironic setup to a laugh at a silly idea. NOT THIS TIME. KJ has suggested something genuinely exciting, seriously, and here it is: If there’s someone you know whose life story or reminiscences you’d love to capture, we can help. We thought mainly of elderly parents or relatives, but who knows? We’d do a video or audio interview, do a basic edit, and then send it to you. We wouldn’t publish it as an episode unless that was something you (and the subject) wanted. Listen to the episode for more about how we imagine this working. Also listen for great listener mail , RJ’s psychic skepticism, and a rousing walkthrough of “9 to 5”, which none of the Dogs have seen. And get in touch if you would like us to talk to a loved one about their lives.

Friend of the show (and Chief Fact Checker) Leigh of Courtenay joins the Dogs this episode as we take a tour through a truly different Oscars show, provide deep coverage on the difference between pots and pans, and revisit The Crown. Fortified by our success with those topics, we move on to looking at just what are Non Fungible Tokens, and then pretend we understand crypto currencies like BitCoin and Dogecoin. Finally, as a palate cleansing delight, we deal with joy, outrage, and comedy as we go through some terrific listener mail. Real and surreal content is here in a dizzying mix of edification and confusion, so take a pre-emptive Advil and have a listen! Don’t ever funge, man.