Am I Shallow or Not?

[Hucklebubba]

(This might be better suited to the TV section, but I wasn't sure.)

So. . .I love Mythbusters. Both because it's interesting and features humor and explosions, and because one of the Build Team members--Kari Byron--is probably the third or fourth hottest woman on the planet.

And you might think that's where the shallowness hinted at in the title comes into play. "There Kaleb goes again, being all shallow and man-like, finding attractive women attractive."

But you'd be wrong. Wrong wrong wrong! Sucker!

No, the shallowness pertains to certain of the Discovery channel's other programming. Not Futureweapons (Woo-hoo! Guided bullets that can discriminate by hair color!), not Stunt Junkies (Woo-hoo! Idiots trying to kill themselves!) and not even Dirty Jobs (Woo-hoo! I've never watched this show!).

I'm talkin' 'bout Surgery Saved My Life. Dear sweet magpies, I hope this show fails. Or at least stops advertising. If it weren't for the commercials, I could avoid contact with it altogether.

But no, Discovery feels that I must know about the latest episode and theme du jour. First it was spinal defects, then multi-organ transplants, then heart surgery, and most recently, facial disfigurements. Did I mention that I'm almost always eating when I'm watching Discovery? Did I mention that I'm usually done eating right after one of these commercials comes on? Could it be that my pattern recognition is not so good, and I'm the one at fault here?

Whatever the case, I actually feel bad--borderline terrible, in fact--about disliking this show. I mean it's doctors doing good things--in the form of incredibly gross surgeries--out of the kindness of their hearts and for lots of money; I'm worried that wanting it to go away so I can keep my bile down is going to incur some sort of karmic backlash. Sort of like back in fifth grade, when a good half to three-fourths of the student body was convinced that making fun of the retarded kids would result in some sort of snafu that would render the mocker retarded. Except that in this case, the penalty is having to go in for a complete upper-body replacement, or whatever.

And yes, my life is still governed largely by grade school superstition. Hey, do I judge you?

I guess what I really want is for someone to hug me and tell me it's okay to be more concerned with getting my turkey casserole to go down and stay down than I am with hideously deformed people on the other side of the world. That's all I've ever wanted, really.

In the guiltily-desired event that Surgery Saved My Life does go off the air, I think Discovery should fill the vacated time slot by giving Kari Byron her own show. I have no idea what she would do on said show, nor do I care.

[varana]

Why don't you simply turn off picture during commercials? Whenever I watch animal planet, I ALWAYS switch to teletext during commercials, to avoid seeing pictures of the animal I'm extremely phobic about?

[sarahbot]

Nuh-uh. Gross surgery is gross surgery is gross surgery, especially when eating.

I didn't know about teletext, varana! I'll have to see if I have that.

[Big T]

There is a time and a place for surgery and in front of you while you eat is not it.

Do not feel bad for disliking a show about saving lives, it involves grossness that was put inside the body for a reason: so that we wouldn't have to see it.
Your karma's just fine.

[Hucklebubba]

varana said:

Why don't you simply turn off picture during commercials?

Along those same lines, I briefly considered just switching over to the Weather Channel as soon as the commercial comes on, but ultimately decided that it would be better if Discovery would just alter their programming schedule to my liking.

[varana]

Well, if you get to reschedual Discovery for your liking, I demand the right to get rid of all shows featuring creepy-crawly insects. Slimy maggoty things make me want to puke. Sorry Shalen, I'm THE worst arachnaphobe in history. I've gone from "get that thing out of here!" to chucking magazines axross the room if there is even a tiny picture. Two distinct real life episods have made me this way. But since I love nature documentaries, I simply read the programming, avoid anything that deals with insects and switch to black screen during all commercial breaks.

I fully understand where you are all comming from with gross stuff belonging inside a body, but personally I find medical shows facinating. I'm truly, utterly facisnated with the details about how our bodies work, what stuff looks like etc. The colours, textures, how things conect. I had no problem being present and watching every little detail when a friend had a mole removed. And I've cleaned up gaping cuts plenty of times. Removing stitches is actually quite fun.
I've sat at the deathbed of a person very, very close to me. And cleaned and prepped him for the coffin when he died. I found it to be extremely sad, but also good in a way to be able to do a last favour for a person who meant so much to me.

My point is, we all have things we absolutely can't watch. But don't deny others their interests?

[Spiderdancer]

I agree with that last sentence.

Not being able to handle looking at human bodies in disease states is fairly normal, as, sadly enough, is disliking invertebrate organisms.

Wanting those things censored for your convenience when you can just change the channel, however, IS shallow.

[varana]

I hope you got that my demand was meant as an ironic comeback, Shalen?

I'm perfectly fine with shows I can't watch being on, I simply avoid them. I admit i even have the avatars turned off at this wonderful site so I won't acidentally scare myself into a fit by meeting one of your pets.

It IS problematic at times of course. Like having to wait for Return of the King to come out on DVD rather than see it in the cinema so I could skip the *shudder* scenes with the you-know-what monster.

[Storm_Rider]

I don;t enjoy those organs out in the open shows, but it would seem large parts of the world's population does. I mean my mom would watch Reality TV like there's no tomorrow, praise (insert divinity here) that they revamped their programming lately, now lots of shows seem to have to do with loosing weight, a good thing, I think.

Aaaanyway, try holding down your food during the Stinky Car myth, I did it...twice. (I reject your dead pig and substitute my own)

Now about Discovery's aggressive style of advertisement, I haven't watched one episode of "I shouldn't be alive" for the simple fact that they were showing those advertisements in every commercial break, too much hype made me not want to watch that particular series.

Ray Mears kicks ass though.

But did you notice that everybody is getting on the Mythbusters bandwagon? shows like Brainiac, Men In White, and now two different shows on National Geographic.

I'd like to apologize my data might be a bit old, I'm on SE Europe programming, we haven;t even got the whole third Mythbusters season yet,....bastards. Praise (insert divinity here) for the Internet , that's all I'm saying.

[Hucklebubba]

Storm brings up an interesting point: Surgery-based programming bugs the casserole out of me, and yet I can watch footage of a Corvette filled with maggots and rancid slime, and not be bothered at all. Hmm.

[deusdragonexx]

Beyond all of that which was just said, I found myself reading every word written above, but only seeing Kari Byron. Is that normal?