Years ago when both I and reality television were young and mostly innocent, a show by the name of Big Brother premiered.  I can't say I remember how I got into the show or why it held my interest at all, but I remember that a one-legged man won the grand prize, and that seemed pretty cool to me.

Fast forward 6 or 7 seasons.  I've now watched almost every season religiously, but maintaining this record is becoming increasingly more difficult.  Mostly this is because my schedule does not afford me to watch television at 8pm three nights a week every week for ten weeks, but this is also because I make a conscious effort to give it up every year.  I always fail.

To be sure, the show has no redeeming qualities.  It is nothing more than egomaniacs forging tenuous alliances with one another under the guise of friendship and sometimes romance, followed by the same egomaniacs telling the camera in private that they lied about their alliances because they don't trust anyone.  When that's not going on, they are competing for various things.  The competitions are downright stupid.  The last one I saw involved people climbing through a moat of honey, ripping open feather pillows, and stuffing teddy bears in jars.  Awful.  But it is for this very reason that I can't stop watching the show.

Big Brother is so stupid, my brain actually turns off while I watch it.  For me, that's about as miraculous as Jesus healing a leper.  I kill for the moments when my brain stops chugging along and just mellows out.  

But there's another, more cynical reason why I can't seem to break the Big Brother habit.  I get entirely too much pleasure out of seeing people on TV suffer.  When people blow up on each other, I smile.  When morons get what's coming to them, I giggle.   When people labor under certain delusions for weeks and then find their deepest convictions to be lies, I chortle with delight.  It's why I watch Cops, Judge Judy, and the sports bloopers on the Fedko Zone.

This summer's Big Brother 10 just started less than week ago.  I've watched all three episodes so far.  My chances of going cold turkey this year are looking bad.  God, grant me strength!