Cocktail Confessions

Big Brother 12

So Big Brother season 12 started last night on CBS.  I don’t know why I always get so giddy about this show.  The idea of being the proverbial fly on the wall and watching silently 12 other people living in a sequestered house from the outside world for the next few months fascinates me.

Of course, there are always different personalities, but you can usually always count on one over-dramatic female, one stereo-typical gay person, one meat-head, one brainiac, and one social outcast.  The formula in how they pick cast members always seems straight forward, and as the saying goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”, and in this, CBS pretty much did the same as they had done in the past. 

However, there are a few differences to note this time around: 1) There really aren’t any contestants over the age of 40.  In the past, you could usually count on one or two middle aged or older players, but this season they are all in their 20’s and 30’s.  The oldest one is the 40 year old female cop.  2) As someone pointed out on a Twitter feed I was reading, this is probably the “whitest cast” yet.  I didn’t really notice that myself until I read that, and I have to agree.  The cast is indeed predominately “white-bread”, with one gal that seems to be half black (if that).  3) This has to be the best looking cast yet.  Seriously, it seems as if CBS execs and producers really went out of their way to choose people that were very pleasing on the eye and to the camera.  So much so in fact, I wonder if it is a way to boost rating here after they realized the smash phenomena Jersey Shore is with all these young, hard bodies.  The girls are all extremely attractive in one way or another, and the guys all seem like they may have come out of Surfer or GQ magazine.

Too bad the season premiere was only an hour long.  There was nothing else on television except some stupid press conference regarding LeBron James going to Miami, (and what a Disneyland press conference that was) there was just nothing else on.   An hour just wasn’t enough to get a good feeling for the house guests.  It was barely even a tease.  I suspect there will indeed be some showmance hookups, drama, and alliances, but there just wasn’t enough time devoted to the players for the audience to even warm up to any of them.

Not sure what I think about the saboteur aspect this time around.  Could be fun, but I wish CBS wouldn’t reveal the player so soon, (they said next week).  I think it makes it fun for the audience at home to make their own guesses and be just as surprised, sorta like a mystery for us to solve at home and has a lot of potential to keep us hooked.  However, by revealing the ‘saboteur’ to the viewers after week one, takes some of the tense drama out of the game.  Anyway, I’ll be posting more about the strategies and individual players as the show marches on.

We finished the night by watching Zombieland, a psuedo-campy comedy horror fil with Woody Harilson.  It was ‘okay’ leaning towards ‘good’, but at 88 minutes in length, and the subject material, what do you expect?

Eye Exam

Later today, I have an eye exam.  I’ve always been very blessed with excellent eyesight.  I’ve never had to wear glasses before and at my last general exam, (just over a year ago) I was told my vision was 20/15, meaning at 20 feet, I can see what most people have to move up to 15 feet in order to see.  I also have blue eyes which do make them more sensitive to light than those with brown eyes, and I do tend to get headaches more easily in direct sunlight if I’m not wearing some sort of polarizing or quality sunglasses.

However, the last few months I’ve noticed that my eyes over all just seem to tire more easily than before.  It may be a couple of different things: my age for one (as I did just broach 40), the fact that I stare at flat panel computer screens for the majority of any given day, and finally the fact that I build very small train models (I often wear magnifying diopters along with tweezers when building them).

Needless to say, by the time evening rolls around my eyes just feel a little sore.  They still work just fine, but I am noticing (or maybe its all in my head) that it’s taking a few seconds longer to focus.  Everything is still sharp, but it seems my eyes are slower to respond now at various depths.  When reading small print, I’ve caught myself moving the paper away a few extra inches just so my eyes can relax and adjust, not because they can’t focus.

Maybe it’s time for reading glasses now.  I’m not exactly sure what’s gonna happen, but  they will most likely dilate my eyes where I’ll be wearing glasses until 9pm and I’ll have to look through that funky lens device.  That’s 2 hours from now, and I already feel like it’s a chore and my eyes are tired.  It’s hell getting old.