as of late, Fox has been airing a show called "american idol" where each week one person is eliminated from a pool of 30 people, when eventually it will be narrowed down to one winner. the winner receives a one million dollar record contract. one person is eliminated through either 3 judges (which includes paula abdul... one step forward and two steps back indeed), and telephone voting. to everyone else, this is the show to watch and talk about. i hear about some aspect of the show every day. on the radio, coworkers, tv interviews, magazine covers, random eavesdropping, it's simply everywhere. to me, this is the show never to watch. i guess i just don't like reality shows.

yesterday, i hung out with aileen. it was definitely an awkward moment because we fought over the remote control... like we were either a married couple or brother and sister( i still can't figure out which analogy i like more). in any case, my Padres were actually being televised on tv against the Braves. definitely an exciting moment for me, since they are rarely on national tv. they were on the top of the 8th, up 6-2. they were winning for goodness sake!!! aileen whined and complained since "american idol" was on at the same time, not giving a crap damn about my Pads actually winning a game. so what eventually happened was the ritualistc commercial switch-a-roo. if one show was on commercial, then i pressed the r-tune button right back to the other. still, aileen was not satisfied as she obviously hates watching baseball despite my desperate attempts to explain to her why it was so exciting. "see? that's called an error. he overthrew the pitch, so the guy on first ran to second! see? isn't that cool? isn't baseball cool and fun?! ooh! bonds is on deck!!!" (in actuality, this was the giants/mets game since the padres game was on commercial. i flipped to that game instead of 'american idol' because i seriously did not want to watch it... but of course, all in vain)

aileen eventually won the bout keeping the tv on 'american idol' and only switching back to the padres game when there was a commercial. needless to say, i only got to watch half of what i could have since she kept on flipping back to Fox to see if the commercials were finished. but the padres game eventually ended, and we stayed on 'american idol.'

'american idol' should be called 'american poopheads.'

after watching the first 30 minutes of poor performances, the judges bagging on each other rather than the contestants, paula abdul wearing some weird outfit (more on that later), the weird looking contestants, the weirder looking family member close-ups, and of course the extremely boring and non-entertaining hosts, i decided to clean the kitchen, do the laundry, and do the dishes.

on second thought, maybe i should be forced to watch the show more.

so obviously, i am not a 'survivor', 'the great race', 'dog eat dog', 'fear factor' or any fan of reality game shows... but this one definitely takes the cake. i'm not doubting that the contestants don't have that much talent, because some of them could actually sing. but if i want to watch someone sing patti labelle, i'll watch patti labelle, and watch her sing it in tune and correctly. if i want to watch someone sing alanis morisette, why not just watch alanis? they should at least have their own material to be considered to have 'musical talent.' dagnabbit, i'll even watch my roommates michael jackson DVD collection that i got him for christmas rather than watch someone try to sing michael jackson.

i think i would rate my experience watching the show as 'punishment.'