Here We Go Again...

     Hello Readers and Happy blah blah blah.  2013, woop-dee-do!  Let's do this.  Getting older and more cynical so it's hard to look at the change of the year with hope and ambition.  There is still a glimmer of hope deep down inside.  Like the last ember in the fireplace that has yet to burn out.  The year is only two days old but I am fairly certain this ordinary man will not be having any extraordinary things happen to him.  My list of things to do this year are: Get a job that I will like, write more, and clean my shower before May.  I don't like to clean much and our bathroom is not ventilated well so cleaning fumes build up after awhile and I soon wonder if it's safe to breath in there.  But, I'll get around to it.
 
     What I won't get around to doing is catching some reality TV.  Some of it okay.  I like "Top Chef" but don't call it reality, it's a game show slickly produced.  Same with "Survivor".  It's a game show.  They have elimination games and voting around camp fires.  When it first was announced back in 2000 or whatever that this new show called "Survivor" is going to be awesome and it's this thing called "reality TV".  Reality TV was created to put TV writers out of work.  Anyway, I thought it would be where people would be left in the wild to fend for themselves, to "survive".  I watched and it was people in the tropics trying to "survive" by running obstacle courses in the mud or eating the most larvae without vomiting.  Put ten people in the high Rocky Mountains with minimal tools and who survives gets the Pontiac Aztec. 
     Most exposure I get to reality TV is through the promos.  Every promo I see for "The Bachelor" makes me sort of homicidal.  There has been what, one marriage from this show?  What has me scratching my head is that there are shows called "Amish Mafia", "Double Divas", and something called "Xtreme Taxidermy" which is on Animal Planet for some reason.  I have not watched an episode of "Amish Mafia" so if I seem as if I don't know what I'm ranting about, I really don't.  That said, please allow me to summarize the show from the thirty second promo: Amish youngsters seem to have gone beyond barn-raisings to organized crime against other Amish.  One person seems to fear for his life in an interview snippet.  His wife or girlfriend or sister or cousin, I don't know her relation to him cause I won't watch to find out, fears he may be dead soon.  There were various quick shots of the gangster Amish guys making threats and stroking assault weapons.  The promo ended with a slow-mo shot of the four toughs posing in front of the camera, one holding a rifle of some sort.  I saw it and I furrowed my brow and thought, "Is that a joke?  It has to be.  Are there really Mafia in Amish country?  This is a fucking show?"  I am not familiar with the Amish, but I thought they shunned modern technology.  My guess is some of them caught some "Sopranos" reruns on A&E and thought it might be fun.  I don't know what you would extort from other Amish folk other than extra preserves or making sure the shoes don't come off the horse or it's curtains for you, Jebidiah.  What does an Amish kid have to do to make other Amish guys want to kill him?  Most of my knowledge about the Amish comes from the movie "Witness" so forgive me if I seem ignorant. 
    On Lifetime, you can find "Double Divas".  From this promo, it's about bra fitters.  Bra fitters that turn the lives of women around for the good by providing them with correct fitting bras.  Interesting, I thought.  But, I didn't see any girls under age forty-five or any ladies who haven't had fried foods getting fitted so I probably will not check this out. 
    Still scratching my head why Animal Planet airs a show called "Xtreme Taxidermy".  I thought it was a channel to see the beauty of the animal world, to learn about beasts you may not have ever seen, to see shows about cute puppies and kitties.  Now see them frozen after death and meet those who mount them on logs.  This promo wasn't even ten seconds long and I won't venture further.  But just how in the hell does taxidermy get extreme?  What would be cool is to stuff some dogs to resemble them playing poker.  A life size display of a Bulldog, a Border Collie, a St. Bernard, and a Golden Lab flash-frozen in time playing Five Card Draw.  That would be freakin' awesome.  And maybe a Rottweiler and a Boston Terrier dressed as old Irish cops holding batons busting up the card game. An ace card in the foot of the Border Collie.  You got to put a cigar in the Bulldog's mouth.  Got to.

     For me, football is the only reality TV.  Speaking of football, thank God for Peyton Manning.  Go Broncos!!  Here's to a new year that hopefully will be a good one for you.

P.S.- I have a great idea for a reality show.  Xtreme Paint Drying.  I'll sit back now and wait for producers to call me.