I was so sure reality TV had hit it’s all time low when `Playing it straight´ was on. For those who have missed it (bless you!) ´Playing it straight`, or as it was called in the Netherlands ´Recognize the homo´, was a dating show, with a twist. One girl, type: extremely stupid, asked FOX to set her up with a man. FOX said `Sure! But we’re gonna make it a bit harder for ya!` and instead of getting men that really want her, they get a bunch of men of which a certain number is gay.
I know, FOX is so wild.
The girl then gets what felt like seven hundred (but what might have been a little less) weeks to figure out which man is gay and which isn’t. At the end of each show she has to eliminate two men and at the end of the series she is left with one guy. If that guy is straight they both get 1 million dollars, if the guy is gay he gets 2 million and stupid girl gets nothing.
Stupid girl was allowed to test the guys (who looked like they all almost got the cowboy gig in the Village People) by making them do things and observe. So the men were expected to run away from horses (running, that one thing gay men famously cannot do!), kiss the stupid girl (kissing women without throwing up and running around screaming, that other thing gay men famously cannot do!) and chopping wood (insert own joke here, use at least one reference to ´wood´). In the end stupid girl picked a straight guy whose arm was broken earlier on (don’t ask) by a gay guy (go team!) and so dumb and dumber and the straight guy shared 2 million dollars.
Now, if you’re American you probably didn’t know all that, because the show got cancelled in the U.S. after only one episode. That’s right: ´Playing it straight´ was that rare piece of crap even Americans really didn’t care about. As said, in the jungle that is Dr. Phil, Oprah, Real World, Survivor and Friends (oh they fooled you too thinking those weren’t real people didn’t they!) I considered that to be the worst piece of reality TV ever.
Enter `Amish in the City´, a show so ridiculous you wonder how much cocaine people actually do use while making up ideas for television these days.
In this show a bunch of hip and happening (and by using the words `hip and happening´ I have just proved that I am not one of them) 20 somethingers get to share an amazing house somewhere in some American city with…. Amish 20 somethingers. So far I have only seen 30 minutes of this show, but I expect lots of fights, some sex and Amish people getting surprisingly bitchy and mean on the asses of the hip people. Also, I demand more shots of the blonde stupid looking Amish guy chopping wood without his shirt on.
Anyway, we’ll see if this show can live up to it’s badness, but in the meantime let’s see if I can come up with some suggestions for next years reality TV formats that are even worse than this one;
I´m so going to fire my agent when I get out of this dump – Show featuring have been celebrities from earlier Survivor and Real World series stuck in one room with David Hasselhoff for seven months. Interesting? No, but anything that keeps David Hasselhoff from releasing that scheduled rap album of his is worth it. Most boring moment? David telling for the 50000th time that Kit was totally his idea. Most dramatic moment? The point where the former Real World stars realize they are actually less interesting than David Hasselhoff.
Taliban in the Red Light District – Shot on location in Amsterdam’s red light district. Taliban warriors get to spent four months living next door to Betty Sue and her friends. Expect red lights, lewd comments and explosive situations…. Literary.
Playing it gay – 10 guys, plus one gay guy who gets to eliminate them. But some of them are straight! Exciting? No, but will you watch it? Damn right. Expect lots of pondering on why four guys have beer bellies and bore the rest of the group (and the world) with constant bickering on football, cycling or (even worse) car racing. Also, expect old clichés about gay men to be repeated 24/7. Stolen from ´Playing it straight´? I resent that suggestion!
There ya go! And that just took me 3 minutes! I expect royalties to start flowing in any moment now.
PS. Rupert Murdoch: Call me!
Monday, July 18, 2005
Monday, July 04, 2005
Theory
I have a new historical theory on scientific development, wanna hear it?
Neah, I figured you didn't, but since you are reading my blog you obviously have nothing to do right now, so screeeeeew you (pronounced in a Little Britain way).
Anyway, as I was studying for my last bachelor exam this weekend I realized something that I thought was rather interesting. The exam, in fact an oral exam, which trust me in real life has nothing of the light eroticism of the words, was about science in ancient Greece. What makes that period (a couple of hundred years) so interesting is that, appareantly out of nowhere, a bunch of Greek guys suddenly started asking very interesting scientific and philosophical questions. Questions about the cause of things like lightning but also, for instance, the existence of gods, the shape of the earth, what 'things' exist of, etcetera etcetera.
What makes that even more interesting, is that we have no idea why they were the ones to start. For some reason scientists in other civilized societies (Egypt, India) did not ask those questions but a bunch of beardy guys in Meletus did. Odd.
Just as odd is why the scientific progress stopped at a certain point. Although the exact point is arguable, some say 300 BC, others go for a 100 BC, it is clear that progress somehow stops and is replaced by looking back at their achievements; instead of writing new works and investigating new questions scientists spent their time checking the work of their predecessors. Part of it is blamed on Christendom, which indeed isn't the most science-friendly club at times (or the most anything-other-than-Christians-friendly club for all that matters), but studying history for over 3 years has taught me that the Christians weren't that popular in 300 BC (I know and this isn't even the theory yet!).
Another possible reason are the Romans. Unlike what most people seem to think, the Romans were not really a smart people. They imported most of their knowledge (and in certain cases actual scientists) from the Greeks and hardly added anything themselves. Basically, the best way to look at the Romans is to compare them to those guys you see in football stadiums; in their pre-beerbelly years some of them are pretty attrective, but the odds of them curing cancer are pretty low (however, the odds of them wishing cancer upon the people supporting the other party are enormous).
Which brings me to my theory; people were just sick of scientific discovery. This may sound weird if you wander through the Forum Romanum and think "Oooookaay, so this was civilization??" (or as the American woman screamed "OH MY GOSH! This is the place where they shot Caesar!") but the Greeks made a huge leap forward in just a few years. Case in point; in Homers time a ship could carry 50 people at the most, 600 years later a ship was reported that could carry 7.250 people (!). What's the use then in making ships that can fit 10.000 people? It's not like you even have enough soldiers (or more importantly rowers) to fill the freaking thing!
Also, and maybe even more so, they were probably out of ideas. After the Greek period of science, a long period of nothing follows. This nothing we sometimes refer to as the middle ages. Some people adore that period and like to dress up in obvious fake clothes and call othother "ye". These people should die. Possibly today. But getting back to the point; the reason why hardly any scientific discoveries were made in those years was that people thought that they already knew everything. Hell, Aristotle lived from 384 to 322 BC and in 1450 his books were the only ones used in all (!!!) courses taught at most universities.
Again, this may sound weird and pretty darn pathetic with our current technology, but my idea is that we're currently moving towards that exact same scenario in our world. Example; the music industry. For years all we had were LP's, then suddenly tape was introduced. A shockwave! Then the CD was introduced. Huuuuge news. Then the minidisc, but everybody ignored that. And now MP3. I remember not too long ago that it took an hour to download a song from Napster and then you still could only listen to it on your computer. Now we have Ipods with more GBs than the average computer.
Which brings me to my point; if you can buy an Mp3 player that has more GBs on it then there is music in the world (and I believe you can), whats the use in technological progress from now on? Who needs more space if you can't fill the one you already have? Who needs smaller machinese when the player you have is already smaller than your wallet? The same point could be made with examples of photocameras. However, talking for more than 5 minutes about photography is excruciatingly boring and rather sad.
Anyhoo, we have come to a point where, in certain fields, we think we know everything. Which means we might very soon be done for a few centuries.
....
Ok, so the theory is crap but I got an 8 (out of 10) for my exam, so who cares!
Neah, I figured you didn't, but since you are reading my blog you obviously have nothing to do right now, so screeeeeew you (pronounced in a Little Britain way).
Anyway, as I was studying for my last bachelor exam this weekend I realized something that I thought was rather interesting. The exam, in fact an oral exam, which trust me in real life has nothing of the light eroticism of the words, was about science in ancient Greece. What makes that period (a couple of hundred years) so interesting is that, appareantly out of nowhere, a bunch of Greek guys suddenly started asking very interesting scientific and philosophical questions. Questions about the cause of things like lightning but also, for instance, the existence of gods, the shape of the earth, what 'things' exist of, etcetera etcetera.
What makes that even more interesting, is that we have no idea why they were the ones to start. For some reason scientists in other civilized societies (Egypt, India) did not ask those questions but a bunch of beardy guys in Meletus did. Odd.
Just as odd is why the scientific progress stopped at a certain point. Although the exact point is arguable, some say 300 BC, others go for a 100 BC, it is clear that progress somehow stops and is replaced by looking back at their achievements; instead of writing new works and investigating new questions scientists spent their time checking the work of their predecessors. Part of it is blamed on Christendom, which indeed isn't the most science-friendly club at times (or the most anything-other-than-Christians-friendly club for all that matters), but studying history for over 3 years has taught me that the Christians weren't that popular in 300 BC (I know and this isn't even the theory yet!).
Another possible reason are the Romans. Unlike what most people seem to think, the Romans were not really a smart people. They imported most of their knowledge (and in certain cases actual scientists) from the Greeks and hardly added anything themselves. Basically, the best way to look at the Romans is to compare them to those guys you see in football stadiums; in their pre-beerbelly years some of them are pretty attrective, but the odds of them curing cancer are pretty low (however, the odds of them wishing cancer upon the people supporting the other party are enormous).
Which brings me to my theory; people were just sick of scientific discovery. This may sound weird if you wander through the Forum Romanum and think "Oooookaay, so this was civilization??" (or as the American woman screamed "OH MY GOSH! This is the place where they shot Caesar!") but the Greeks made a huge leap forward in just a few years. Case in point; in Homers time a ship could carry 50 people at the most, 600 years later a ship was reported that could carry 7.250 people (!). What's the use then in making ships that can fit 10.000 people? It's not like you even have enough soldiers (or more importantly rowers) to fill the freaking thing!
Also, and maybe even more so, they were probably out of ideas. After the Greek period of science, a long period of nothing follows. This nothing we sometimes refer to as the middle ages. Some people adore that period and like to dress up in obvious fake clothes and call othother "ye". These people should die. Possibly today. But getting back to the point; the reason why hardly any scientific discoveries were made in those years was that people thought that they already knew everything. Hell, Aristotle lived from 384 to 322 BC and in 1450 his books were the only ones used in all (!!!) courses taught at most universities.
Again, this may sound weird and pretty darn pathetic with our current technology, but my idea is that we're currently moving towards that exact same scenario in our world. Example; the music industry. For years all we had were LP's, then suddenly tape was introduced. A shockwave! Then the CD was introduced. Huuuuge news. Then the minidisc, but everybody ignored that. And now MP3. I remember not too long ago that it took an hour to download a song from Napster and then you still could only listen to it on your computer. Now we have Ipods with more GBs than the average computer.
Which brings me to my point; if you can buy an Mp3 player that has more GBs on it then there is music in the world (and I believe you can), whats the use in technological progress from now on? Who needs more space if you can't fill the one you already have? Who needs smaller machinese when the player you have is already smaller than your wallet? The same point could be made with examples of photocameras. However, talking for more than 5 minutes about photography is excruciatingly boring and rather sad.
Anyhoo, we have come to a point where, in certain fields, we think we know everything. Which means we might very soon be done for a few centuries.
....
Ok, so the theory is crap but I got an 8 (out of 10) for my exam, so who cares!
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