Reality.

Back in MY day (my goodness I’m getting old), summertime on television used to mean that we got to watch reruns. I remember one particular summer where we got to see Farrah Fawcett be an angel after watching Cheryl Ladd do the honors the whole season before. That same summer Laverne and Shirley’s landlady hadn’t married yet and they called her Mrs. Babish, even though we now knew her to Frank’s wife. Reruns were what we got in the summer and though it was brain candy, it was good.

Today we get reality shows.

Now, I don’t think one should be watching a lot of television in the summertime. In these parts it’s the one time of the year where you can actually get outside and do something without having to wear a snowmobile suit, so I like to keep busy in some manner. But once in a while you want to escape and be a couch potato. Enter, the Reality Shows.

Earl is good at flicking the remote through the various offerings we get on the satellite. I’m not much for channel surfing anymore. I’d rather just think of something to watch and download it, cutting the cable completely and controlling our own schedule, but if you’ve been raised in the era of channel surfing it’s hard to break the habit. Yesterday he was watching some reality show called “Millionaire Blind Date” or something like that.

What a waste of technology.

First of all, I don’t know where to begin. I’m probably going to sound like an offensive, judgmental prick, but the woman who’s running this millionaire dating service thing is one of the most screeching, obnoxious women I think I’ve ever witnessed. Her lips are so plumped up she looks like she’s been stung by a bee. I will set aside her grating downstate accent because I’m nice like that, but her attitude towards her clients is unbelievably awful. I don’t know why anyone with any sort of self respect would go to this woman for dating assistance, especially since she can’t be doing a really good job if she needs to fund her business through appearing on a reality show. Not since The Beast¹ appeared on “Love Cruise” and “Paradise Hotel” has such an awful woman appeared on a reality show. I blame that thing they call Snooki (and for the life of me, I still haven’t figured out what a Snooki is). If this is the best that the greater New York metropolitan area can offer than Houston we have a problem.

I think I should be ashamed that I know about these reality show people I have just mentioned.

Now I haven’t watched “Big Brother” since BB3, I have seen what sort of damage Survivor can do by releasing people like Elizabeth Hasselbeck onto the masses and I have absolutely no desire to eat a bug, but when is this reality show ‘fad’ going to end? Why can’t we go back to things like “Password Plus” or “Match Game”? At least on those shows we knew the celebrities that were appearing and we had the entertainment of watching them whilst under the influence.

I think I need to convince Earl to dial it back to TV Land and watch a rerun of “Alf” or something.

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