The reality of reality television

If you watch television on almost any weeknight, you will mostly likely come across one or more reality television shows. In-fact the highest rated television show right now is American Idol, which averages over 31 million viewers per episode. It seems these days, the major networks will produce any type of reality show in an effort to attract viewers. The latest craze is with game shows.

Two new game shows have attracted my attention, Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter than Fifth Grader? I think these shows have reached a new low in reality television. Both shows have super perky, hyper, annoying contestants. In the show, Deal or No Deal, the whole concept of eliminating numbers to get the million dollar briefcase is based solely on luck and requires little intelligence. Even more annoying are the contestants family members trying to assist the contestant, I just wish they would shut up.

I cannot believe the lack of intelligence of the contestants on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? One contestant was not sure what country neighbored the United States to the north (sigh). The most annoying part of the show are the contestants high-fiving the kids who help them answer the questions ... it just aint kool.

I remember the good old days of television, bring back the Fresh Prince of Bel-air, Growing Pains, Cosby Show, Family Feud, and Seinfeld. Those were good quality television shows ... ahh those were good times, I must be getting old ;-)

The office

One of my favorite all-time movies is the Office Space, a story about the day-to-day lives of office employees. Many issues common to office workplaces are discussed and explored. Recently, a comedic series called The Office staring Steve Carell, (who is brilliant in the show) also discusses the office politics of employees. My office environment is fairly tamed compared to the afore mentioned television show and movie, however, recently I came across an office-space like situation that I want to vent about.

Every office has printers that employees use to print documents. Most often employees abuse these resources. The frustrating part of this misuse is the impact on our environment. We waste so much paper on a daily basis. I have witnessed people printing most of their e-mails frequently. My biggest caveat is the printing of unnecessary colour documents. A single colour document can cost an average of $1.00 per paper. Last week, I went into the printer room to pickup my colour print job and had to wait till someone elses 30 slide PowerPoint presentation finished printing. After realizing the print job would take another 10 minutes, I left the printer room in disgust. I went back to my desk and started working again. This time, I struggled to get staples into my stapler ... arggg, just another day at work.

I could not find a "clean" The Office/Office space moment to relate to my blog post, sooooo here is a random video from The Office.