OK, taking a momentary departure from my blogs about my visit back home to talk about a guilty pleasure: bad reality TV.  Emphasis on "guilty", I should be locked up for this one.

I know there are diseases to cure, laundry to be done, grass to watch grow but I admit I fell into the bad habit of watching this silly show on Oxygen.  It makes no sense on a zillion levels.  For one, this is on Oxygen?  This is Oprah's network, right?  I am not sure how giving a bunch of unstable women attention, alcohol, and a camera crew is something she would generally sign off on.  These are absolutely not the kind of people to sign the "No Phone Zone" pledge.

For those of you who have not seen the show, it is a gathering of women from all kinds of backgrounds into a house in Miami.  The one thing they have in common is that they are self-described "bad girls".  What that means is entirely unclear.  All I know is that 2/3rds of the show is bleeped out.  The problem, of course by design, is that they are encouraged to behave like bad girls, and a friend of mine who also watches the show has noticed that they so often refer to themselves in the 3rd person as "bad girls" that you could easily turn a viewing of this show into a very efficient drinking game if you consumed something every time a character said that.  The less-than-ironic thing about it is that the plot each week seems to also revolve around heavy alcohol consumption and the explosive consequences.  None of this should come as a surprise as this is all by design.

I thought to myself that the only thing that makes the show interesting is that this nuclear potential is all in the casting and that is where the show is evil.  Producers are looking for the exact opposite of what NASA looks for in astronauts.  The psychological investigation into a potential astronaut is exhaustive with some of the key features being the ability to get along with others in an isolated and stressful environment without letting emotions cloud judgment.  "Bad Girls Club" producers are looking for wildly unstable people bordering on clinical emotional problems who are guaranteed to fight with each other under calm circumstances and destroy everything in their path when the slightest sign of trouble shows up (and I mean that quite literally, and that is a word I hate to use 'literally'.

Again, this is not a shocker.  So, why is it worth a blog?

Well, this last week one character told another in confidence that she used to do heroin; as part of a personal confessional to help the other person understand why is is the way she is.  Well, the other character at a low moment after ingesting plenty of rocket fuel decided to reveal to everyone within ear shot that their roommate was a heroin addict.  She also went on a ten minute bleep.  A lot of stuff breaks, etc., etc.

In the calm repose of sweeping up debris the next morning the characters reflect on it.  The defense the one woman used for revealng the horrible secret was: "Well, if she didn't want everyone to know then she shouldn't have told me."  That woman is 26 years old, I think this is something you learn when you are 5.

I guess watching a reality show about NASA astronauts living in a house in Miami would be far less interesting:

"Shall we go out this evening."

"Is it in the mission itinerary?"

"No, sir it is not."

"Doesn't appear like sound thinking to me Jackson.  Let's run this one by the boys in the Cape, and until then proceed to the next item on the check list.  I don't think an EVA will benefit us at this point.  Let's get some shut-eye."

"Yes sir, it is 8pm after all."

The caveat is Lisa Nowak, back in 2007 she was arrested in Orlando, Florida, and subsequently charged with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, the girlfriend of astronaut William Oefelein.  Nowak is a former astronaut.  She either slipped through the psychological exam, or was accidentally examined for the wrong program.  On the show I just watched yesterday, she might fit in.