A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

HIS EYES ARE ROLLING BACK IN HIS HEAD AND HE'S RUNNING ALL WEEBLY-WOBBLY: Lest anybody think I'm going all highbrow on you, what with the book-reading and all, let me just update everybody on the wonderful world of reality television:

• As was painfully obvious to everybody paying attention to Real World/Road Rules Challenge, including the collection of 'roid monsters and frequently-concussed comprising the veteran team, the idiotic format the producers adopted ensured that the veterans' advantage would increase weekly, but that the veterans could not win the final (and only remunerative) challenge. What was not predictable was (a) that even in winning, the rookies lost, so that I think they only won either one or two challenges fair-and-square, depending on whether you think Adam threw the balancing thing; and (b) the show would go ahead and let a 300-pound guy die from heat stroke and only Brad (Brad! Diagnosing Big Easy with "Acute Vascular All Weebly Wobbly") would be quick-thinking enough to call shenanigans. I mean, some people were not only in favor of dragging the passed-out seizure guy up the beach -- they were outright livid that the paramedics wouldn't let them. How dare you let our friend's life-threateningly high body temperature and dangerous dehydration get in the way of our splitting a small pot ten ways! Of note: I think that Casey's little rant about Coral's age was intended by the producers to be a message directly to me that I'm too old to watch this show.
• To borrow a joke from Tina Fey, I watched Paradise Hotel and it gave my TV genital warts. The show features: as many butt- and thong-shots as it can pack into an hour (doubling them up by sticking them in the "coming up after the commercial" previews); several contestants saying about people they literally just met, in all seriousness and with complete unboastful certainty, "I'm going to have sex tonight"; and the motto, adopted by the contestants in repeated toasts, "sharing is caring," meaning exactly what it sounds like. This may be the only reality show where the post-booting quarantine is for health, not secrecy, reasons. I'd have to say it's the second-skankiest show on television, right after Dancing With the Stars.
• The Bachelor is English and some girl gave him her underwear. I wonder if she knows that in England they call them pants. Also, some girl in formal shorts just sang a melody-free song that went "I want to touch you/I want you to touch me/I want to feel you/I want you to feel me." But a capella, so I predict that ALOTT5MA readers will be divided.