This is definitely different

So it’s been storming lately, which has been, to be honest, kind of awesome. Because Yours Truly has decided not to chance driving on the highways. If it’s going to be winter, it should bloody well *be* winter, is my opinion on the matter. None of this dicking around with a long, cold, dirty November. Just BANG! HEY! IT’S FRIGGING WINTER! It’ll go away soon, and we’ll have another brief tryst with stupid autumn.

But enough about the weather. The point is, I’ve been a lazy bum the last day or two, and have been watching television rather than taking this opportunity to work on my writing or clean the house or, you know, bathe. I have discovered that, given the choice, I will most likely become a drain on society and will forget everything I ever cared about about art, culture, and knowledge. I’m perfectly happy to drone out watching Yankee judge shows, programmes about dog training, and the Space channel.

So there’s this Canadian programme called Canada’s Worst Driver where people nominate their loved ones as just precisely that, for whatever reason – inability to see stop signs, attempting to break the land speed record in a Yugo on a regular basis, being a general douche-canoe, whatever. It’s an interesting programme, as television goes. The deal is, every person who gets selected for the programme has to surrender his or her driver’s permit. The golden egg at the end of each season is that if you improve your driving ability and/or attitude sufficiently through the course of the show, you may *earn back* your permit.

And trust me, some of those mooks oughtn’t be allowed to drive at all. And, in some cases, that’s what the show’s producers and/or host and/or experts have told the drivers. Particularly in the case where the driver simply cannot be rehabilitated. That’s the thing – the people who participate in this programme are ostensibly there to be rehabilitated. They learn new skills, gain confidence, get an attitude adjustment, whatever. Sometimes, it’s quite entertaining, and sometimes it’s maddening. Case in point, one driver who probably spent more time applying false eyelashes and lipstick than she did paying attention to the potentially life-threatening exercise of driving. She also insisted on driving in platform shoes. She alone did her best to set back the cause of feminism by DECADES. Anyway, she was also a few bricks short of a load. Tammy Faye without the personality.

So I’ve got my arse glued to the couch yesterday, and I flip over to America’s Worst Driver. Which is, essentially, a game show. Their ‘contestants’ are chosen, similar to the Canadian show, by their friends and loved ones. They are, for the most part, pretty bad drivers (but not as bad as some of their Canadian counterparts). But. Get this. They are sent through a series of challenges that are loosely modeled on some of the challenges in the Canadian show, although the challenges in the Canadian show are really geared toward two things: teaching each driver how truly terrible they are behind the wheel; and teaching them how to drive well and properly and be in control of their vehicle.

So the Yankee contestants show up, do some of these challenges, which are timed, and one by one, the losers in each challenge have their cars destroyed. Because the whole goal of the Yankee programme, the golden egg in this case, is a new car.

I watched this, and the incongruity of it all (or maybe it was the irony) caused my eyebrows to knit and wrestle around each other like a couple of horny caterpillars. These people aren’t learning anything except that greed and excess are cool and funny. All they think about – all they’re *programmed* to think about is how cool it would be to have a new car. A NEW CAR! That they DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR! Because their other car got blown up or shot or squashed or dropped off a cliff or whatever.

Then I thought about ranting about this, and then I thought, ‘dude. Just turn the television off’. But I didn’t.

Maybe I *will* try National Novel Writing Month this year. And I’ll do it by unplugging my gorram boob tube.

Stupid Yankee ripoff of Canadian programs.


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12 responses to “This is definitely different”

  1. Mike McCall Avatar
    Mike McCall

    Hey there! It’s not just Canadian programs. They do it to the British, too.

    With very few exceptions, whenever the big networks reach out to the wider world to steal a program idea, it ends up being an exceptionally effective killer of brain cells.

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      Yeah. Although I must say the Bri’ish ripoff of Japanese game shows are *much* more amusing than the Yankee ripoff of Japanese game shows.

  2. Coyote Avatar

    As much as I love watching CWD, I prefer Canada’s Worst Handyman. This show is an exercise in lack of common sense and makes me giggle like an idiot. :) Because it makes me feel much more competant. And never let your husband see that show or you’ll never get another power tool ever. :)

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      What are you talking about!?
      *I* am not the one in this family who doesn’t know how to use power tools!

      We watch that show, and I glare at His Nibs.

      1. Coyote Avatar

        Oh I know you’re competant, but it may further fuel his irrational fear of you and power tools.

        1. cenobyte Avatar

          Kay.
          To be clear, he has a very rational fear of me, *and* he has an irrational fear of power tools. He does not have a fear of me with power tools; he is, however, convinced that if I get too many power tools, he will come home one day to find our house revisioned into the shape of a giant spermatozoa.

          Which, now that I think of it, is a pretty bloody cool idea.

          1. Coyote Avatar

            Where would you build the tail?

            1. cenobyte Avatar

              Where *wouldn’t* I build the tail!?

              Our house has three gorram chimneys!

  3. BPM IV Avatar
    BPM IV

    CWD rocks. The best moment *ever* was watching the kid who got booted from the show. not sent home with his license, but tossed out.

    He wasn’t taking things seriously, had no problem flashing his “School of Law Enforcement” ID and generally being a douche-nozzle.

    So the show cut his car key, chopped his license and towed his car home for him. Then officer Cam Wooley forwarded the kid’s taped footage about cops being pretty stupid to every officer in the kids area.

    So. Much. Win.

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      Have you watched the new season at all? There’s an all NEW douche-ebb on there. Made me want to move to a Remote Farm, get rid of all technology, and home school the kids.

      1. Coyote Avatar

        Season 7? uz the one with the Tammy Faye face was on season 6, which was the last completed season. I know they’re starting a new seasons right away. Also Younghusband (The host) is the perfect combination of wanting to help people and asshole. When anyone on either of the shows keeps making the same mistake he just goes off on them. It’s freakin’ AWESOME!

  4. cenobyte Avatar

    According to the programme I watched last night, which they called “Season 6”, the Tammy Faye season was season 5.

    I think Worst Handyman is in its seventh season, though.

i make squee noises when you tell me stuff.

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