I like certain aspects of reality television. I don’t particularly like the gross/competitive ones, like Fear Factor or Survivor, but I do sort of enjoy the ones where you just watch people’s personalities interact. I’ve been watching The Real World for years, though I think I’m getting too old for it because I am now ineligible to be a cast member, and I find the cast members to be really insufferable. I watched the post-season hash-out last night, and it was downright painful. What a bunch of idiots.

There are, however, some really good reality shows out there, including The Biggest Loser. I watched the season finale of that last night, and a guy from Eastern Iowa won. They had a shot of him running the stairs at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which I recognized because that’s where my college graduation was held, as was my brother’s, and I went to a women’s basketball game once. This guy lost over 150 pounds. I was extremely impressed. Losing weight is hard, and it was especially cool that he and many other contestants continued to lose weight after they left the show. It’s one thing to get in shape when you have trainers and dieticians constantly badgering you about it; it’s quite another to go back home and figure out how to get back to a normal life without falling into old habits.

It was very inspiring to watch while I ran on the treadmill. The best part about that show is that even if you aren’t the winner of the $250,000 prize, you still win: you get to not have a heart attack. If you don’t win on Fear Factor, all you get is a stomach full of scorpions. Yuck.