If I had lunch with a famous person...

So I had a random thought the other day while I was watching Big Brother and I was thinking... What famous person would I have lunch with if I could?  It happened that the person was staring right at me from my TV screen... It would be Julie Chen.  Why Julie you ask?  Well, she is pretty awesome.  She hosts one of my favorite shows and despite her small role within the show, she has a big impact. All I can say is that the Chenbot rules!

As the host of CBS's Big Brother, Julie gets to see the ins and outs of the show.  She gets to know the characters better than we do and she has a backstage pass to all of the action.  What makes me love Julie so much on Big Brother is that you can tell that she is just as much of a fan as the rest of us are.  She gets excited when she meets the evicted house guests and likes to tease the house guests with some thought provoking questions (giving Jeff a hard time about Jordan).  She also plays along with them when they throw questions back at her (Dan when he calls her Mrs. Chen).  You can tell which house guests she likes if you pay attention to how she greets the person as they walk out the front door. To see an example of Julie's love for the game, click here.

In her 12 years of hosting, she has developed a bit of a reputation as being a little stiff at times.  Some would say robotic.  This comes from her background of being a journalist and trying to be objective (which is a part of her formal training).  Given this stiffness, she was nicknamed "Chenbot".  Some people would be offended by such a nickname, but Julie has embraced it and even makes fun of herself by using the nickname "Chenbot".  See related story here.

If I had lunch with Julie, I would ask her all sorts of questions:

Who is your favorite house guest?
Did Brenchel annoy you as much as they did the rest of us?
If you were a house guest, what season would you like to have played in?
Chilltown or the Brigade?
What did you think of Boogie and Will playing the women in BB All-Stars?

Overall, I think that Julie would make a great lunch date and would be really fun to chat with.  I would love to pick her brain about the game and get her take on the show and it's various characters.  She is the ultimate expert in the game and it would be totally fun to nerd out with her.

Julie, if you see this, give me a call! You pick the place and I'll get the tab.

Quick Note to Big Brother's Dan

Dan,

This week, you have had my stomach in knots. I cannot watch various parts of the episodes this week because of the craziness of your Head of Household. With that said though, you have been able to weasel your way out of difficult situations, and for that, I have to tip my hat to you. You have played a great game this season. I cannot think of anybody else in recent seasons that has performed as well as you. I hope that your game play does not come back to bite you Thursday night, because, you may be caught up in the surprise double eviction night tomorrow. I hope that your side of the house keeps the HOH and you send either Jerry or Ollie packing (really Ollie because he is the next one that needs to go after Michelle, Jerry will be easy to get rid of next week).

You are a true Renegade.

Good luck and God Speed,

Dustin

Want to know what is going on, see the recaps here : http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_brother/recaps/1019/?season=10

and

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_brother/recaps/1020/?season=10

Exercise and Big Brother

I was bored this Saturday and I have been wanting to get back to exercising regularly. I really need to so I can get healthy and maybe get off some of my pills. Well, last Sunday, Dustin from the Big Brother House led a ab workout with some of the other house guests. Guess what I did, I did the workout with them. It was a non traditional way of working out, in terms of the source of the workout, but it was still good. I still sore from it, so obviously it worked something. It was hard when ever they switched the feeds back inside the house to the other house guests, but fortunately, they did not stay with them long as they were just munching on cookies. It was funny because one of the house guests said that there were probably watching them and doing the workout with them. I was probably one of a couple hundred of those people. Afterwards, I tried one of the more "traditional" workout videos from the Time Warner on demand option, but it was too hard, and I was already pooped from the other work out, so I abandoned it for another time.

Who knew that you could combine reality tv and exercise?

Why do we love reality?

What is it about watching people living their lives do we find fascinating? We live similar lives as them, eat mostly the same foods, encounter the same problems, have friends or ourselves act the same way as these people "picked to live in a house," what is it?

The reason that I did not blog yesterday was that I was totally consumed with this year's newest season of Big Brother. This is my first season to watch Big Brother and I cannot seem to get enough. The production company gives us unlimited access to the "house guests" via video streams online and also limited access through Viacom's Showtime 2 Monday through Friday from 12am - 3 am, which means 9pm - 12pm Big Brother time. With all of this access, you can see much more than what is shown on the regularly scheduled programs on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Because I was not satisfied with Sunday's episode, I went on a search for more video and more content and found a plethora of videos on You tube. Now I am content with hearing stories and knowing what has already happened in the BB house that will be airing on CBS tonight.

It was so weird because I could not pull myself away from it yesterday. Even when I went to lunch, I could not stop thinking about it. I am almost at the end of a really good book and the whole time I was reading it, I was still thinking about what I had just learned from the Big Brother house. Once I had finished watching all of the videos available, I asked several co-workers if they watched BB so I could have somebody to talk to about it, and could not find a soul who did. By the end of the day, I was still wanting more.

The whole thing about this is that I watch other reality programming and have not really acted this way before. I watch the Real World and Road Rules and other similar shows. There is information on the Internet about these shows, but I don't find myself searching all over the Internet for information about their newest seasons. Maybe this is because they are really tight lipped about their new seasons and they are not "as live" as Big Brother, where BB airs a live House guest eviction on Sunday nights.

Overall, do I relate somewhat with the characters? Definitely. And the thing is that if I were ever to meet any of these people, it would be such an awkward encounter because I would know so much about these people and they would know nothing about me. I would ask them specific questions about their life that I learned from the show and they would give me a look of "you don't know me" and be really hesitant to respond. The moral is, we cannot make friends from TV. It is hard to invest time in a show and get to know about people and receive nothing but a passage of time and some entertainment in return. Maybe this is the psychological response to Reality TV.

I guess that it also speaks a lot about the person. If you can watch the show and just live your life ok without watching it one day, then you are ok. There are no. You are not crazy. If you find yourself not being able to function without knowing what happened on the latest episode of your favorite reality show or how a character responded or need that daily dose of your favorite character, then I would think that some life changes would need to be changed. Go outside and play. Go meet up with some friends. Make your own reality show.

With that said, do I need to make some life changes? Yes. Is it going to happen immediately? No. Will it be easy? Definitely not.

Photo Credit : CBS