"REALITY" TV.

     Two days until closing.  In the meantime, the Wife and I have been watching a bunch of shows on HGTV, "just to get ideas".  Really, it is more like the Wife watches, I heckle.  She gets ideas for decorating, furniture, "window treatments" (the accessory formerly known as "drapes"), floors, paint, plants, bathrooms, carpets, pillows, and cabinets.  How walls can be torn down and rebuilt in 30 television minutes, that sod can grow anywhere, and that the pentultimate goal in life to achieve is "curb appeal".  My idea: the USA has been passed up as the top contractors of the world by the Canadians.  Seriously.  All of the shows that have what all guys want in a G-rated show (demolition and reconstruction) are all hosted by these guys that talk about how they need to build something oot, and that the solution for all remodelling and structural problems is lots of money.  Like $400,000 for a 1300 square foot house.  Maybe they use the metric system for their money, too.

     The worst has got to be the ones with people that are followed as they look for a new house.  "House Hunters", where some family/ couple/ single person works with a local realtor to view local unrealistic displays of what money can find in the local market, each with tiny little flaws that make for drama during the commercial breaks, as to which of the three houses is chosen ("the one on the hill does have that gator problem, but the double vanity in the master bathroom is georgeous!")  I am sure some people are betting on the outcome.  But here's the problem: it is totally fake.  As in "buy the house, and we will work it into the episode as your choice while we find two other houses to use as ringers" fake.

     I've read how some folks compare "House Hunters" to the fakeness of professional wrestling.  That's a false comparison: wrestling is not fake, it is well choreographed and scripted.  When Mick Foley gets his ear torn off in the ring, when John Cena flies through the air, when Ric Flair slaps some schmo across the chest, that isn't fake.

     "Property Virgins" doesn't seem fake.  Perhaps it's all too real, but we'll never see those participants get screwed for the first time, either.