Also Ty is Incredibly Obnoxious

I can't decide whether or not I like Extreme Makeover.* Well actually, not really. I HATE the show, but that's because it's a reality show, and reality shows make me want to vomit. What I REALLY can't decide is whether or not I support their endeavors regardless of that fact. On the one hand, helping people is good. That's something I think we can agree on, right? On the other hand, they do it in an incredibly corporate-whorish** way. Product placement, all that garbage. So that's a negative. On the other other hand, they're STILL helping people, and you need money to do that. The end result is positive, even if they had to sell-out a bit to get there. So that would make it a force for good, right?

But then I hit a bit of a snag. Okay, so we have this team of architects, engineers, construction workers, etc. who have the manpower and the resources to build an entire house in a week. Or at least, they claim it's a week, that might in fact be a complete lie. Now, the problem with this is, I feel like this amount of charity is sort of wasted. Sure, occasionally they'll have an episode where they help people who are truly, truly screwed (hurricane victims, people who got totally dicked by a lawsuit and ended up living in a shoebox, etc.) But most of the time, it's people who really aren't in THAT bad of a place. They're boned, sure, but not in a "one sprained ankle away from starvation" sort of way. And that bugs me.

I've been to New Orleans guys. Let me tell you something: It still sucks over there. There's still hurricane damage everywhere. These people could make an episode based in New Orleans every week for the next five years, and they'd still have a long way to go. And when things are like that, it's hard to take the "Our daughter is a midget, please help us" episodes*** seriously.

*You all KNOW I mean the "Home Edition" one. The original incarnation lasted like, two seasons? And the relationship between the two was kind of a stretch at best in the first place. Christ, why do I know that?
**Really spellcheck? "Whorish" is a word? Hot damn.
***No seriously, this happened. Everything else in their life was perfectly middle class. Some people don't even have houses. Just sayin'.