The Good Old Days.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I don’t know if any of you are big sports fans at all. I happen to be. It gives me something to be intense about other than important things, and sometimes I just need to unplug from life and think about something else.
In my sports watching days, back when I used to get cable, I was a huge ESPN fan. I’d watch ESPNNEWS, which is the same show they just keep doing every half an hour, all day long. The same sports show, with the same highlights, and I’d watch it for two or three hours at a time. I’m not kidding. Mostly, that was because I detest regular telelvision so much, but it’s also partially because I like sports and I’d rather watch reruns of a sports show than watch something I haven’t seen on any other channel. When Fox Sports Net finally made it to my town, I was both happy and somewhat preturbed. Now I had to choose between sports shows, because Sportscenter and Fox SportsNets best show came on at the same time. Anyways, the Fox Sports shows, as one might expect from Fox, tended to be a little bit racier. They imported a bunch of models and stuff to read the sports news, and of course, to the average red-blooded American male, the only thing better than sports news is sports news delivered by a hot chick. Fox has gone through a bunch of chicks in the timespan since I’ve been aware of their programs. LeeAnn Tweeden, Lisa Guerrero, Lisa Dergan and another chick by the name of Jillian Barberie. Jillian is a decent looking woman. I know some guys who think she’s pretty hot. She was one of the first women through the show, and she apparently was a weather girl in a big market somewhere before she had this gig. She married a no-talent guy from the Montreal Expos, a guy by the name of Bret Barberie, who’s major league career was pretty shortlived, and most of you have probably never heard of him. That’s not an accident, his career wasn’t one that made headlines, though admittedly you’ve got to have pretty good skills to make it to the major leagues.
Anyways, she left Fox SportsNet some time ago, and basically fell off the planet. Tonight, I’m watching pointless UPN TV programming at like 1:30 AM local time, and all of sudden, on my TV is none other than Jillian Barberie. She’s hosting a show called EX-treme Dating. As if there weren’t enough crappy dating shows on TV in our day and age (Elimi-date, Blind Date, Heartbreakers, etc, etc.), apparently now there is another one. This one’s gimmick? They give one of the parties on a blind date, an ear piece which is connected to the ex’s of the other person. So, as these two people go on a blind date, one of the people is getting all this dirt on the other person on the date.
Sounds like fertile ground for a relationship to me!!
People will do anything for ratings or to get famous, I swear. In response to this, I’d like to ask a few open-ended questions just for your general consumption (and potential amusement).
1. Would anyone with half a brain (sorry, Jessica) go on a televised date when they knew the person they were going to go on the date with was going to be in constant communication with ex-girlfriends/boyfriends? You’d have to be either very confident or very stupid (or very anxious to get on tv.)
2. Would anyone with half a brain go on a televised date where they knew they were going to get all kinds of bad information about the person they were going on a date with from the person’s exs? (Normally, you have to wait a couple of months and casually run into an ex before THAT happens.)
3. Who thought up this garbage?
4. Who thought that the idea was good enough to put on TV?
5. Who was the brain surgeon in the casting department who was like, “You know who would be a great host for this show? Jillian Barberie.”
6. What did I just spent 15 minutes writing this down?
7. Why does it amuse so much?
8. What is the shelf-life of a show like this?
*laughs* I’m going to bed. Big day tomorrow.