Recently, my editor and I did something amazing. We spent 11 hours and 5 minutes watching all three extended editions of “The Lord of the Rings.” Let me change my statement. Recently, my editor and I did something ridiculous …

We sat on a couch and watched television for 11 hours and five minutes – not something to be proud of. And yet everyone we have told seems to think of it as an accomplishment.

If you were to tell someone you spent half of the day watching television, they would call you a lazy pile of garbage. However, we have been greeted with accolades.

If anything, the real achievement was getting my editor addicted to cheese nuggets, which he now affectionately calls “nugs.” Since the LOTR day, he has been obsessed with ordering them. In fact, we ordered some the other day. I would consider it sad that the primary source of joy in our lives comes in a greasy box.

But I have gotten off subject. While television is not inherently bad, I cannot imagine what possessed us to spend that much time watching it. I know that for a while afterwards I couldn’t watch television or films. I guess we needed to kick the LOTR bug and get it out of our systems. Kind of like when you find new food you really like and eat it all the time until you can’t stand it. I once worked at a movie theater and after leaving, it took me four years before I could eat popcorn again.

By the way, have you ever smelled wet popcorn? It is my least favorite smell in history. I think it beats the smell that follows decapitating a skunk at 73 miles an hour.

I guess one of the things I am happy about is we did not dress up for this. I don’t have anything against the people get dressed up to go to movie premieres. I worked at the theater when “Phantom Menace” came out, and the dressed up people provided days of entertainment. There was even a time where an entire family dressed up like Zorro, even little kid Zorros.

Let’s be realistic, there is a line between dressing up in a costume to show off how well made it is or show your support for the subculture you are a part of. But running around a movie theater with a garbage bag for a cape and a marker mustache with your family is a bit ridiculous. Damn marker sniffers.

In the end, we had a good time, watched some very good movies and ate far too many “nugs” to be considered healthy.

No one got hurt, no one did the drugs you kids are so into these days and we all lived to tell about it. The moral of this story was that you are your own person with your own life, and no one has the right to make fun of you, unless you dress your family like Zorro. Moron.

Views expressed in this weekly humor column do not necessarily reflect the Northern Star or its staff. Send questions or comments to bcameron @niu.edu.