It began long ago, two young boys in an American town riding their bikes to school and Little League practice.

Over the years, the boys became fast friends, united in their love for stories where things would go horribly wrong.

Pour yourself a strong beverage and buckle up. You're in the shallow end with

Schnebly and Toff. It's the shallow end with Schnebley and Toff, although I guess I don't need to say

that because the Lifeguard just did. Thanks, Lifeguard. Thanks, Lifeguard. See you next week. She's so

consistent, isn't she? It's almost like she says the same thing every episode.

Very, very consistent indeed.

How you doing, pal?

I'm doing good.

We are going through what's known here in Ecuador as El Rolling Blackout.

There's a drought going on here, which is, I think, due to El Niño.

There's been no rain in the high Andes, or not much.

It's been a bit of a drought, and all of the power is hydroelectric.

Sure, which is clean.

It's even more clean when they're not running it.

So throughout the city every day, for about four hours, different neighborhoods get shut down for four hours.

And so my apologies to you for making you wait several hours.

A whole three hours?

Yes, I was quite put out.

It actually was very smart on your part because it allowed me to do a lot of editing on the

next episode of From Beneath the Hollywood Signs.

That's doing really well, isn't it?

...