Paramental Weekend

This is you, moments ago: "I wonder what my blog buddy Rider did this weekend." Then you clicked here for my answer. So here it is.

I saw Ghost Town--because Ricky Gervais is the funniest Brit alive--and I watched Ghost Hunters on Sci Fi.

The latter activity caused a rift in the fabric of reality, because I don't believe in ghosts or reality television--yet I watched both at once.

I theorize the only reason I wasn't sucked into a neighboring dimension is because Ghost Hunters isn't technically reality TV.

(The good news: I cancelled garbage pickup with my township because I can now toss my trash into the glowing portal in the family room. The bad news: Boxter went missing while we were playing catch with a tennis ball that went astray.)

Now you're asking the question: "Cripes on a crutch, Rider! Why would you bother watching anything on the Sci Fi Channel? I've produced better movies on my cell phone featuring my neighbor cutting his shrubs in black socks."

Truer words have never been spoken, my blog friend, although I think Sci Fi has already produced a show about a man-eating shrubbery that wears black socks, so try again.

But to answer your question: I can't get enough of "TAPS," as the ghost-hunting team calls themselves, because they've added a new tool to their arsenal of paranormal equipment.

By employing something called a K-2 meter, the Roto-Rooter researchers from Rhode Island (it's embossed on their business cards) can interview unseen entities and get yes or no answers out of them.

Sure, the questioning sequences are heavily edited, and OK, Grant and Jason don't bother explaining how the electromagnetic device actually works--aside from pointing out that the flashing LEDs mean "yes." But the possibility that these guys are actually communicating with the dead is interesting.

A few weeks back they were in an old sweatshop, talking to the ghost of a nine-year-old boy. He admitted he was lonely, and Jason--who looks like Michael Chiklis with bad facial hair--invited the spectral lad to come home with him to live with his five children. It was a beautiful moment. He's like the Angelina Jolie of dead kids.

In last week's episode, they quizzed a female spirit in an abandoned train station. She was still waiting for her man to arrive home from World War II (which explained a great deal about the punctuality of trains in Buffalo and why the station had closed). But the TAPS guys kept their Q&A way too basic. There were so many other questions--philosophical and otherwise--they could have asked but didn't.

• "Are you hot?"
• "Can you touch me here?"
• "Andy Kaufman: alive or dead?"

I smell a Ghost Hunters celebrity talk-show spinoff. There's so much potential in the premise of setting an EMF meter down on Elvis' toilet and interviewing the King. Fox would buy it.

By the way, you can purchase a K-2 meter yourself, and get more party mileage out of it than that Ouija Board you never use because your mother told you it invites the Devil into your soul.

P.S. Wait for Ghost Town on DVD, but first buy the BBC's Office series and see a rotund comedic genius at work.