Occasionally, I get addicted to some piece of trash TV that is vaguely appalling. Once, I got addicted to Rockstar, and I told myself it was okay, because I wasn't recording it when I couldn't catch an episode, unlike others I knew.

This time, however, it's the cooking show, Master Chef. I got caught up in it at the end of the previous season, when the Cute Girl went up against the House Mum in the finals. This season, I got in early, so I could watch the judges, George, Gary, and Matt work there way through twenty odd contestants. I also hoped that I would be offered such moments as a rather large man in bright pink pants standing in an alleyway of Melbourne, telling a young woman that she had the opportunity of a lifetime.

Outside that, however, there's a similar kind of format between Rockstar and Master Chef, in that the contestants actually have to do something. Of course, fans of shows such as I'm Fat But My Instructors Are Not (also known as The Biggest Loser) will probably say the same thing, but I've never been able to get into that show. There's something so defeated about the people in that show, as if they've hit rock bottom, and the only way to fix their life is with the cultural cure of reality TV, which will mostly leave them in an emotional wreck worse than what they began. How else to describe forever being known as, "That fat shit who failed the Biggest Loser." But perhaps I'm being unduly fair to the people who show up on it, and the vacuous, dim witted sort who were on Big Brother and Whatever Country You're In Idol. Some guy pulled his car out in traffic while I was driving home today. Without looking, in the wet and the raid, he pulled out on the freeway and I had a loud, spinning break inches from his car.

I can only hope he was one of those fat rejects from the Biggest Loser.

(crossposted)