Guilty Pleasures, or: cheerleader chooses quarterback, leaves band geek in the dust.

Okay, maybe this paints me as being a little less intellectual than I might appear, but I watch reality TV shows. Not a lot of them, but enough to think that maybe I shouldn't get so wrapped up in other people's lives. Maybe. Whatever. They're what I like to call "brain twinkies" - a lot of fun, but afterwards, you don't really get much out of them.(i.e. like a Twinkie: tastes good, but of almost no nutritional value.)

On NBC last Monday was a show called Average Joe. It was the series finale and I had been following it since the series started. For those of you who only watch PBS and find most television to be pap, here's the premise: a very attractive woman named Malena (a former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader) is taken to a Palm Springs mansion and is told that she will have several men to choose from. The catch was that the guys she'd have to choose from were 'average' - underweight, overweight, average looks, etc., etc., you get the idea. Over time she eliminated many of the guys and brought the total from over 12 down to three. At that point, the show brought in three other guys who were all what I (and many other bitter average guys) like to call "prettyboys."

Long story short, Malena had narrowed her selection down to two - a 26 year-old prettyboy student/waiter named Jason who lives with his mother in Irvine, CA; and Adam, an 'average joe' who is a millionaire day trader in New York who had a great sense of humor and with whom Malena seemed to be smitten.

Wait, don't get ahead of me, here's the kicker: She chose the prettyboy. I know that shocks you, but that's life. The quarterback gets the girl, while the broken-hearted band geek puts away his sousaphone and sets about building Microsoft. Revenge goes to the band geek.

I don't know exactly what is was that pissed me off about this show. Maybe it was that I identified a little too strongly with Adam (except for the millionaire part, curse my luck:) ) Then again, maybe it was a good thing, says Olivia: she probably would have spent all of Adam's money, having already said in a previous episode that she was the poster child for financial mismanagement.

Anyway, Adam, wherever you are, I've got your back.

~Rob