TV Confessions: Hoarding, Coupons and Collecting Weird Stuff

I have a confession to make. I’ve become slightly fascinating with slightly disgusting reality shows.

I blame the networks. During the summer, just like in school, summers are considered vacation time. This means my usual TV viewing of Grey’s Anatomy, Vampire Diaries (no mocking), Top Chef, and Gossip Girl (again, don’t mock) are all on hiatus along with other shows I watch every now and again. In an effort to fill the gap, there are other summer shows but nothing I remembered to watch in time to become invested.

So, I’ve been filling my summer in other ways. I did a lot of reading. I just now wrapped up all five of the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin as well as various other books I’ve borrowed and been meaning to read and return for months.

I’ve also cooked a lot. Thanks to my slight addiction to farmer’s market’s, vegetables have been the focus of my summer dishes. I’ve perfected my caprese tart, become slightly obsessed with beet salad and found a ton of ways to prepare veggies using a grill.

I also published Emmy Goes to Hell. I’ve written some short stories as well as conceptualize my new novel.

I’ve spent a lot of time with the dogs.

In short, my summer has been quite productive and fun in the absence of TV. It’s just that, well, as a fan of a good serialized show…I’ve missed TV quite a lot. I’ve substituted by rewatching all seasons of Top Chef. I’ve also been rewatching one of my all-time favourite shows, Gilmore Girls. Yet…I’ve seen them before. They’re not new to me the way a new episode of, say, Grey’s Anatomy is new. I did have Game of Thrones for a while and what a great while that was but at only 10 episodes in the season, it didn’t last long. Now it’s True Blood and that has been greatly disappointing this season. I still watch it out of habit but, well, it’s just not very good and thus, not very fulfilling.

So, as summer has started to wane, I’ve been turning on the TV and seeing just what’s on. Thanks to my parents, I already knew about Billy the Exterminator. This is a show that follows, you guessed it, an exterminator in Louisiana. Trust me, it’s funnier than it sounds because Billy looks like someone who fell of a 1980’s hair band with a penchant for the Harley Davison look. It’s actually quite funny especially when Billy has to don his mask (looks a little like Skeletor from He-Man) and his feather boa (helps prevent bee stings. Trust me, there’s nothing quite as bizarre and hilarious as watching this tough exterminator in a long black trench coat wearing feather boa and Skeletor mask fighting a swarm of bees. Billy has a brother too but he’s not very bright although he, too, looks like a 1980’s hair band reject.

I try not to watch Billy at home. I did slip once and caught myself watching it but it was about Canadian geese and I find those quite interesting anyway. Since my parents record it on their DVR, I normally wait until I got there for a weekend and see if they have any new episodes to watch. It makes me feel slightly less guilty of watching bad TV if it’s not on my DVR.

However, it doesn’t stop with Billy. A couple of weekends ago, I was caught between tasks and errands and I flicked the TV on and caught myself watching Hoarders: Buried Alive. I confess. I’m a little hooked. I wrote a blog once about how much the show Clean House annoyed me because slobs are rewarded for their…slobbishness by getting someone to help them clean their house. Hoarders is different. I find myself watching it for the psychological aspect of it. These people have actually to some psychological problem where they literally cannot throw things away. While the show tends to be a little vile at times, particularly when the house is so cluttered that rats are living beneath the mounds of stuff, it’s still oddly fascinating to me. I also caught just regular Hoarders this weekend. I don’t like it as much as the Buried Alive version because I think it tends to be a little too dramatic with the Black Information Cards of Doom that they use to inform viewers of additional information. However, does tend to be a little more disgusting. For example, there was a woman this week who was clearly severely mentally ill who fancied herself a cook. She had no working fridge, dead rats buried underneath trash and she apparently bakes cookies with mealworms and doesn’t tell people. Also, she left a dead squirrel in the butter dish once.

I can’t help it. Disgusting as it is, it’s also fascinating. We’ve established that I have a dark streak- it’s most attracted to the darker side of human nature. I’ve always been fascinated with personality disorders. Hence my fascination with Hoarders.
From there, I saw another show being advertised: My Collection Obsession. It featured a lady who is obsessed with baby dolls and treats them like real kids. Worse still, her husband and daughter let her do this and think it’s interesting. Well, the husband likes it because it means she leaves him alone but…still. There was also a boy who loves vacuum cleaners and collects them. He loves them and has a side business fixing them. I think he was 15. Apparently, he loved vacuums since he was a toddler. While I think it’s a bit odd, I actually think it’s pretty interesting to have a ‘calling’ in life that’s actually quite useful even if it does mean a large collection of vacuum cleaners to go along with it.

Then another day, I came across Extreme Couponing. I didn’t like this one so much. I find that, psychologically, extreme couponers are just another variety of a hoarder. Sure, there are the decent ones who clip the coupons to create care packages for the troops or to give to a homeless shelter. But every couponer also has “a stockpile” which is a very well organized room/closet/basement filled with shelves that are so full, it looks like a grocery store. One man was proud that he had 1000 tubes of toothpaste that he had for free. Then there was a lady who wanted to help her daughter-in-law get a stockpile of her own. So she went to the store, managed to get over 30 bottles of laundry detergent FOR FREE with her coupons and then gave her daughter-in-law five of them. Yes, five. How generous.

They might be well organized but these extreme coupon people are still hoarders. They spend 35-40 hours a week clipping a coupon. They have GIANT binders full of well organized coupons. Their stockpiles boast more of each item than a store generally keeps on the shelves. Sure, they’re saving money but they’re doing it for the sake of getting stuff for free not because they really need the stuff. It’s a different form of hoarding. It’s usually born out of needing to save money and I respect that but if you can go to the store, get a weeks’ groceries for free, do you really also need to get ten more of each item just because you can? Do you really need 71 bottlesw of mustard because you have 71 coupons? Do you need a cart full of diapers because they end up being free EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T HAVE A BABY????

It just seems like Extreme Greed to me. Plus, where the heck do they get those stacks and stacks of coupons to begin with? Also, if I got stuck behind an extreme couponer in the grocery store, I think I’d be annoyed. It takes them FOREVER to check out because they watch the cashiers like hawks. Also, if I went to a store to use my SINGLE coupon for a bottle of detergent only to find out that some greedy cow had just bought 30 of them and didn’t leave any for me, I’d be annoyed. LEAVE SOME FOR THE NORMAL PEOPLE!

That’s it as far as my guilty TV goes. I think once the regular TV season starts up, I’ll cut back on my crap-TV viewing. However, I will say as a writer, I do find it insightful and interesting to study the personality types of these people.

Of course, the side effect is that I’m very, very conscious of how much stuff I have in my house. Also, I’m even more conscious of making sure my house is clean. Also, if I see some clutter, I immediately declutter the area because I have a secret fear that I might be becoming a hoarder without realizing it.

Also, after seeing the disgusting Fridge Lady, I did immediately go to my own fridge to make sure everything in it was fresh and not blackened, dirty and 20 years old. Oh, and yes, she actually ate the things from her fridge that were literally 20 years old. This is especially vile because, as I mentioned, her fridge wasn’t working and hadn’t been for many years.

Sorry. I’ve probably disgusted you now, haven’t I? I apologize. Blame the Hoarders.
Although, really, since I’m the one watching the show, I’m really too blame. Oh dear. Maybe that means I have some psychological problem where I’m some form of voyeur for watching these people. Will that be the next show: Voyeurs: Buried Alive by Disgusting TV. Perhaps I ought to go back to reading, writing and cooking and just wait for the real TV season to begin.

Although perhaps I ought to wipe that show I saw advertised about Waiting for the Apocolypse off my DVR first.

I have to face it. I’m a hoarder of a different nature: I hoard things in my brain about freaky people to write about as characters in my novels.

Can we call it research instead? I like that better.

Happy Thursday!

The Mediocrity of Movies

I used to see a lot more movies than I do these days. For a while there, I was a movie junkie. I'd go to the theatre to see anything that appealed. I used to love the temptation of the popcorn-infused air, sitting down in a cool, dark theatre and just losing myself in the movie. Granted, if I didn't like it, I wasn't exactly quiet about it afterwards but I still enjoyed the movie-going experience. Many times, I enjoyed the movie.

These days, I still love the movie-going experience. It's just that…well…the movies just don't seem to be what they used to be.

Saying that, I probably sound like one of those crotchety old ladies who sit there and say "things ain't what they used to be." Although, for the record, I never use the word "ain't." Also, while we're on the subject, I will never, ever say, "where you at?" I hear that far too much in person and on the television and, let me tell you, the secret English teacher inside me wants to grab the utterer by the ear and give it a good tweak. That is NOT proper English and no amount of repeating it will make it so.

I digress. What I'm saying about movies is, well, that…mostly these days, they seem to suck. I find that I'm rewatching old favourites because most of the newer ones I've watched just aren't…good.

I know it's not just me. My family and friends are all finding the same thing. These days, if someone asks me if a film is good or not, most of the time the highest praise I can give it is, "it didn't completely suck."

There are some exceptions. I enjoyed "Inception," this summer. It was interesting. I think I liked it even though it's the type of movie that makes you feel like you have a perpetual expression of "Huh?" on your face. My inner 'geek' enjoyed "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." But I couldn't say it was actually good. Aside from that, well, I can say that there hasn't been a movie in a while that has captured me and made me want to rewatch it again and again. Thinking back, the last movie that completely enchanted me was "Across the Universe," which I still contest was brilliant in its creativity, casting and level of enjoyability.

Yet…I haven't seen anything remotely that entertaining in quite a while, not at the multiplex and not on DVD. Well, not new on DVD anyway.

I just don't feel like they're making good movies anymore. Most of the time what Hollywood thinks is good is not what we, the paying moviegoers, think is good. The top grossing film of the year/summer was "Toy Story 3." I have no doubt it was good. I liked the other Toy Story movies but when it came out, I didn't feel like sitting in a theatre filled with kids and I never did find a time to go. That's my fault. I know. However, not everyone likes animated movies so even if that is the best movie to come along in a while, try convincing someone who doesn't like 'cartoons' that it's worth a watch.

Yet the other top ten movies of the year include "Twilight Saga: Eclipse" which has a built in audience and given the base material, stand little chance of actually being good. It also includes "Iron Man 2" which I admit, I enjoyed but it lacked the comedy and humanity of the first movie.

For the most part, when I see a film these days I feel like there's always a 'but'. As in, "it was a good film…but…"

It may be just me but I think when Hollywood has resorted to either remaking "classics," like "The Karate Kid," or Americanizing foreign movies that really didn't need it ("Let the Right One in" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") or, gasp, making movies based on board games: "Battleship," "Candy Land," and a variety of other Hasbro-themed upcomers- I don't think it is just me.

I will say, however, that of all the 'board game' movies, I wouldn't be surprised if "Battleship," at least, is decent. It's going to be directed by Peter Berg who is the creator behind the fabulous TV show, Friday Night Lights. I think that has to be one of the best shows on TV. It's one of the most poignant and realistic ones too. He manages to take a one minute scene and do more in that than most do in ten minutes.

TV, in my opinion, is the new 'Hollywood.' That's where the creative minds are, the storytelling, acting, direction and all the other nuances that go into making a TV show something to which it's worth committing. While there are duds, there are actually good shows, shows you can talk about with people the next day and spend a while discussing. I think with the economy being what it is, people are staying home to watch their large 'small' screens because they can't afford to see it on the movie screen. The smart people in Hollywood know this. They're the ones looking for the next TV phenomenon. The non-smart people in Hollywood are making movies like "Knight and Day," and "MacGruber."

I guess the point of this blog is that I feel like Hollywood has stopped seeking greatness and has embraced mediocrity. Even the Oscars this year…I thought "The Hurt Locker," was a good film but it wasn't the type of movie you want to put in your DVD collection and watch on rainy days the way you might do with "The Godfather," "American Beauty," or even "Forrest Gump." It wasn't a mediocre movie by any standards but it also wasn't Hollywood.

I'm hoping that Hollywood starts to get better. I'd love to be able to describe a movie as "awesome" again. I'd even settle for, "it was good!

Instead, we simply have, "It was ok." "It was watchable." "It didn't completely suck."

High praise indeed.

Happy Thursday!

Weight Watchers vs. Real Food....

It's getting closer to the weekend. Isn't it sad how we wish time to pass so quickly during the work week? What I'm truly afraid of is that if I live to be 100, complete with all the wisdom I'd think I was due, I'm going to look back and say, "what the heck was I thinking, wishing time to fly so quickly!"

I don't. Not really. Just the time I have to spend at work. It's not even the time I want to pass...just the work. Am I a bad person for wanting this?

I think life would always be much easier if we didn't have to work. It would also be far less interesting and far less frustrating. Still, we need a way to pay our bills and feel like we have a purpose in life.

Ok, so I confess, I can't say my job makes me feel like I have a purpose. Yet it does pay the bills. And that...that is important too.

Nevertheless, I do think that if I didn't have a regular routine during my day, I'd soon get a little befuddled by life. For all of its negative days, my job does have its highlights.

For me, my favourite part of the day is lunch. I know, I know...this sounds rather sad. Yet since we've moved from our cruddy old building to our new State of the Art, High Tech Building, lunch has become more of an event than just something you partake in around noon every day.

Unlike our old building, our new building actually has a "kitchen". It's in quotation marks because there is no stove. As a self-declared "cook", I am snobbish to think that a kitchen needs a set of burners and an oven to be a real "kitchen". Therefore, I refer to our kitchen as "The Lunchroom."

The "Lunchroom" is nice. It has three tables with bench style seating. It has a big flat screen TV. I'd wow you by citing the size of the TV but, in all honesty, I have no idea how big it is. It's bigger than my TV at home. It's also flatter. That's all I can tell you.

We no longer have a cable box. As I might have mentioned, they seemed worried that we'd hijack the cable boxes so they hid them in our 'server' room- the same room that houses our computer serves and to which you need an access key to enter. I have no access key. Thus, I cannot enter it. I think that about 98% of our personnel is also unable to enter. When they first moved the cable boxes to the server room, they had the unfortunate experience of realizing it was actually quite impossible changing the channel with the remote control when the receiver box was nowhere within the vicinity. After a few protests (but no complaints!), they did realize it was a little futile to have two TV's that could not be controlled because the remote control's signal was not strong enough to reach the server room.

They finally installed 'eyes' on the TV's- receptors that allow us to change the channel in the lunchroom, even though the cable box is not present. Personally, as I mentioned before, I think I'd rather steal a flat screen TV than a cable box but it would be a bit pointless to lock the TV's up too.

Still, now we can change the channel which is vital to any good lunchroom experience. If I'm in there alone, I put it on the Food Network (duh!). However, if any males, whosoever, should be in the lunchroom, the TV is guaranteed to be on ESPN's "Sport's Center". If the girls get there before hand, it goes onto the Style Networks "What Not To Wear."

Honestly, I could care less. Since I'm not allowed to eat at my desk, I've taken to eating in the lunchroom. I've actually come to like it. There's a regular group of us that arrives at noon to microwave our lunches and we end up eating and socializing.

I admit, it's quite nice. It does make a brief escape. I like sitting with 'the regulars', discussing our lunches while they examine my weird 'Foodie' lunch and try to figure out what I'm eating. Today, it was penne with crimini and button mushrooms in white wine cream sauce. Tomorrow, it'll be mache salad with lardons and red pepper dressing.

Ok, so I admit, I quite enjoying stumping people. It's fun to eat. It's more fun to cook the food that will become the leftovers that will become my lunch.

I like my regular 'crowd'. We've actually sort of dubbed ourselves the 'anti-Weight Watchers.'.

I like that designation. You see...the New Year passed. With it, passed resolutions that involved weight loss and getting in shape.

This led to....Weight Watchers.

Now, as an aside, I respect the people who are trying to watch what they eat. I generally, overall, keep an eye on the amount of bad ingredients I use vs. good ones. While I tend to use a fair amount of extra-virgin olive oil and even the dreaded butter, the majority of the dishes I used rely on vegetables. As I mentioned yesterday, I've taken up yoga.

Thus, the moral of this story is that while Captain Monkeypants is a foodie who likes the good stuff, she also likes to keep a balance between health and taste.

However, the Weight Watchers are a challenge.

They've become a 'gang', you see. Once upon a time, there was one Weight Watcher. She was one of those poor souls that is constantly on a diet but genetically engineered so that no matter how many calories were deprived from her diet, she'd still never really lose much, even when she worked out constatantly. Then there were two Weight Watchers. They compared notes, swapped diet schedules and point counters.

Then there were three. Now there are five. They have taken to conversing in the kitchen while us "anti-Weight Watchers" eat our lunches. The sad fact of the matter is that people on diets become obsessed. They compare calories, protein, fat grams, sugar content and overall health of an item. When they find a fellow dieter, it's exciting for them and two become one. When one becomes five, as in the case of our Weight Watchers, it's a bit of a nightmare.

Now, don't get me wrong: Captain Monkeypants is not against dieters. She could certainly stand to watch her own diet far more than she does now. Once upon a time, Captain Monkeypants was skinny. Then she became slender. She's currently hovering on curvy...on the cusp of being either flabby or moving back towards slender.

I'm not overweight by any doctor's scale but compared to the figure I had ten years ago, I've gained a lot of weight. The problem is, I'm ok with that. I want to be skinnier...who doesn't? Yet...I also like food. I'd rather enjoy what I eat than be miserable and have to count every calorie.

Which leads me back to our Weight Watchers.

They're not happy. It's obvious. On my birthday, they took me out for lunch. It was lovely of them. I enjoyed it. Yet listening to the Weight Watchers have to examine the menu and 'point it out' was exhausting. They couldn't read the menu and think "hey, that sounds good!" They had to manually calculate fat vs. calories vs. their point schedule.

It was no fun.

As I said, I understand it. I just can't do it. To me, it's pretty obvious that cappellini pomodoro is pretty safe. I mean, yes, it's pasta but it's angel hair. It's just flour-based pasta, fresh tomatoes, basil, pepper and a touch of olive oil. It's healthier than, say, fettucine alfredo which is usually egg-noodles, cream and cheese.

Yes, I'm a foodie. Yes, I know the ingredients that comprise many dishes. Yet does it really take a foodie to know that fresh tomatoes and basil vs. cheese and heavy cream is really a contest as far as healthier options go?

That being said, the Weight Watchers don't care about their instincts. Even though 100% of them know that fettucine Alfredo is bad, they still pull out their little guides to 'point it out'. Then they determine that, indeed, the cappellini pomodoro is MUCH better for them.

So they order it and act like they're happy even though they're looking at the non-Weight Watcher's fettucine Alfredo and wishing they ordered that instead.

I'm not lying. I've seen this at least a couple of times. I admire the Weight Watchers' resolve. It takes strength to resist the temptations of the food that makes us happy. Me, personally...I can't do it. I love the taste of half and half as the finishing element to a soup. I'm a cheese addict. There's not substitute for butter, as far as completing a flavour profile.

Thus, I'm doomed. I know this. Yet I also balance the bad stuff with the good, as I've said a few times.

What I don't appreciate is the Weight Watchers' need to "point" my lunch for me. I know they see what I'm eating in the lunchroom and compare it to their Smart Ones/Lean Cusine Frozen meal and wish they had my lunch instead. After all, I've eaten my share of Lean Cuisines. I know that while it might make me feel good to eat that cute little dish full of microwaved nutrients that has few calories and fewer grams of fat, an hour later, I'm going to be STARVING.

It's the way it works. It's the same thing I've said before about those 'healthy' lunches like Progresso Soups. Sure, they look healthy and say they're healthy but that's only if you only take a sip from the actual can of soup. If you eat the whole thing, you're apparently feeding at least two people and the healthiness is significantly reduced.

Which is why those Weight Watchers are to be found, all afternoon, rotating shifts at the popcorn machine, trying to find ways to fill the hole of hunger while not padding their thighs. Yes, they've taken to using the popcorn machine rather than the microwave because apparently the popcorn machine is healthier, even though it uses vegetable oil and they pile on the seasonings and salt.

What I'm really annoyed about is the need for the dieters to tell me how unhealthy my lunch is. That's just downright rude. Ok, so I know that eating my cream based pasta-sauce is not the same as eating steamed broccoli. Yet, I made it with fresh mushrooms and half-and-half. It might not be a Lean Cuisine but it's not that bad. I don't WANT to know how much fat is in it, how many calories I might be eating.

What I do want to know is "does it taste good reheated?". Yup, that's the extent of my "diet".

As I said before, I do respect when people are on diets. It's a challenge, an accomplishment. What I don't like is when that diet becomes an obsession to the point that they're clearly miserable and therefore finding pleasure in making non-dieters feel bad about what they're eating. I'm actually a pretty healthy eater. Just because my leftovers don't have a label regarding the calories and fat, doesn't mean I'm not trying. I do not appreciate knowing how many points everyone's lunches has, including mine. I really just want to eat my lunch and enjoy the taste. I like to sit with the coworkers I like and chat. That's what lunch is for me. When mathematics is involved, lunch loses its appeal.

Yet when the Weight Watchers invade the kitchen we're all doomed.

Still, it keeps things interesting. Even if I don't agree.

Happy Thursday.