No pity for Television Without Pity

If you’re following my Twitter account or see my blog entries appear on your Facebook News Feed, you’re about to receive an onslaught of posts in the next day or two. My apologies, but there’s a good reason for it.

It started when I found out that Television Without Pity will be shutting down on April 4th. It’ll be keeping the old forums online until May 31st, but after that, no more TWoP. It’s kind of a bummer because the website earned a special place in my heart many, many years ago. And by “many years ago”, I mean “the summer of 2005 when Beauty and the Geek was on the air.”

My older brother Brent told me about the site since he’d created an account, started following what was going on and occasionally posted little tidbits of information about me. (There was never any concern about spoilers because I never told him anything before it appeared on the TV screen, so he found out how thoroughly I tanked the outdoor challenge at the same time as all of the other home viewers.) But when he told me about some of what people were writing, I was intrigued and started lurking on the forum.

Brent eventually revealed that we were brothers and people occasionally tried to milk him for information and/or insight. Not a big deal—he could write more than I felt comfortable doing because I didn’t want to breach my contract with the WB. However, that let to a really awkward exchange for one person on the forum.

First, I’d like to declare that it’s a major ego boost to read that someone had a sex dream about you and “it was nice.” Second, I’d like to declare that it’s probably really, really embarrassing to find out that the object of said sex dream read what you wrote. I can’t say for sure, but after someone pointed out that Brent was my brother and I was probably lurking, her next post was “oh fuck.”

But reading about how people saw and interpreted the show (versus what actually happened) was usually pretty interesting. There were some pretty insightful and intelligent people there, many of whom had my back when things were going in the toilet with gathering phone numbers and Scarlet chewing me out for a majority of our final episode on the show.

When I read that TWoP was going to be shutting its proverbial doors soon, I decided to go read through what people wrote oh so many years ago. Ah, nostalgia… And ah, sex dreams… I spent way too many hours last night reading the first fifty or so pages of the forum (that’s when they started writing about later seasons and who cares about those?).

Brent had referred them to my blog at various times, particularly after the 4th and 5th episode when I was ranting about what happened, what appeared on the screen, what didn’t appear on the screen, etc. Since people were discussing that, I decided to pile up some more nostalgia by going to the blog and reading those entries as well.

There was just one problem: they weren’t there.

I thought I transferred all of the posts that I’d saved on my hard drive. As I wrote them in the past, I’d copy and save them in a Word file, then add the date and title to a “Blog entry dates” file to keep everything in order. When I compared that list to what was on the website, there were two dozen missing.

If it was just a long string of entries, I’d understand. I was reposting everything on the new blog, got sloppy and missed a big chunk. In this case, though, there were maybe five scattered here and there within a span of about two months. I’m not sure what happened, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I’m going to fix the problem. I’m going to post everything that’s currently missing, change the publishing dates to their original dates and everything will be back to the way it should be. Order will be restored!

Thus, I’m going to be busy for a day or two and you may end up reading a whole lot of outdated stuff, but who knows? Maybe some of you will get the same sense of nostalgia. But you probably won’t have the same sex dreams.

2013 – 2005 = A lot of years

I know, I know, backdating entries is usually a no-no, but when a man misses an anniversary… I gotta cover my tracks somehow, so I’m “posting this on June 1st”.

Why was June 1st a big deal? Because it marked the 8th anniversary of the premiere of Beauty and the Geek.

The date didn’t involve a romantic relationship, so maybe it’s not quite as important. It still boggles my mind that everything happened so long ago, but the fact that I missed the anniversary isn’t quite as important. That’s probably a good thing since the traditional gifts for an eighth anniversary are bronze and pottery, neither of which would make a couch more comfortable if I’d been stuck sleeping on one for the next few weeks.

Some emotional memories die hard

Some of you may have already noticed the change in the menu bar at the top of the screen: there’s now a page that has YouTube videos of every episode from Season 1 of Beauty and the Geek (there’s a link to the VEVO page there that has seasons from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia). Putting all of those videos here on the blog required getting their web addresses, so I went to each one, copied the address, then decided to check out all of the comments sections as well.

Comments were sparse compared to chat boards when the show was on the air, but that’s kind of a given since it was eight years ago. Still, there was one… I don’t want to say it struck a nerve, but I almost responded to it. During Episode 5, she thought it was sad that when Scarlet was so pissed off at me, “no one stood up for Shawn, not even Shawn himself.” My response would have been along the lines of “It’s hard to stand up to someone when you agree with her.” And for some godforsaken reason, that inspired me to watch our final confrontation. [Insert ominous music here]

She asked me if I wanted to come pick up branches and I knew she was going to yell at me again, so there wasn’t much point in delaying the inevitable. That time, though… I’ve probably described it in here before. I can’t remember the last time I’ve come so close to snapping. If she’d said one more thing, I would have. I knew I would have. And as I watched it happening again on my computer screen, I suddenly realized that I was clenching my jaw. Hard.

I turned the video off pretty soon after that, then brought my laptop downstairs to my room. Strangely, I’m in “the basement” even though it’s at ground level. I decided to play a game on my phone for a little while, then heard a noise. Out in the driveway. The sound of a car door slamming.

My first thought was wondering why my parents were home from the family cabin so soon. My second thought was that they took the vehicle that’s parked in the garage and there was no reason for anyone to be in the driveway. My third thought was remembering when someone tried breaking into our house while I was home. Into my room in the basement while I was in bed.

I leaped out of bed, grabbed some clothes, grabbed the shorts that had my keys, started to move to the stairs, then reached back to grab my phone. In retrospect, I could have used the house phone to call the police, but my first instinct was that I’d need to call using my phone.

I bolted upstairs and ran to my dad’s room that has a good view of the driveway. I saw his truck and my car, but nothing else. (That’s why I brought my shorts with my keys: if someone was there, I could hit the button to set off the car alarm.) I moved to another window and looked out. Nothing at the end of the driveway or in the street. It really didn’t matter that I could see outside. The sky was dimly lit at 5:30 in the morning, but it would only take a couple minutes to get in, grab some valuable stuff and get out.

I finally sat down on Dad’s bed and realized that I was shaking, breathing too quickly and it felt like my stomach was twisted into knots. I tried to relax, standing up to look out the windows now and then. Still nothing, but that didn’t stop me from shaking.

I eventually got up and went to another room where I could see behind the house and the fronts of the vehicles. They looked fine, so it was probably an acorn or branch or something that bounced off one of them. Either that or someone got into and out of one of the vehicles without making any noise, which made staying inside a great idea.

I sat down on the recliner for a while and hoping that it would help me calm down a little. And it did. A little. Then I decided that I wanted to grab my laptop so I could either chat with some people on Facebook or write a blog entry. (Kind of ironic that I was thinking about writing about emotional memories and my jaw clenching when watching that video from Beauty and the Geek.)

So I stood up and walked toward the stairs. It was just a couple strides before… have you ever been cold, but not cold enough to shiver? It builds up in your system for a couple seconds, then there’s just one big body spasm? That’s how the shaking started again. I was okay at first, but pretty soon, I was shaking again. Still, I was committed to getting downstairs and getting my laptop. I needed some sort of connection: I didn’t want to just sit in the recliner by myself.

I got to the top of the stairs, made it three steps down before I sat down and started crying and hyperventilating. I would have been sobbing, but my breathing was too fast and shallow. I couldn’t do it. (It was bad enough that I’m tearing up writing this.) I got just calm enough to stand up and head back upstairs.

A few minutes later, I got mad. I put on my best scowl and started thinking, “I’m not going to be a victim in my own home. I’m not going to be a victim in my own home. I’m not going to be a victim in my own home.” That scowl stayed on my face the entire time I was downstairs and I kept that thought in my head as I quickly grabbed my laptop and walked back upstairs: “I’m not going to be a victim in my own home.”

It worked long enough for me to get back to the recliner so I could sit down, turn on the computer and log onto Facebook in hopes that I could find someone to chat with at 6:00 in the morning. Sleep was not an option. Unfortunately, I wasn’t getting any replies, so I went with what was behind Door #3: write a blog entry.

It’s helped some. I got to write about emotional memories (and had two examples instead of just one!). Focusing on writing has helped me get rid of the shakes, though I’m still tearing up from time to time. Sleeping might be an option eventually, though this recliner feels pretty comfortable compared to my bed downstairs right now. In the meantime, maybe I’ll try to find someone to chat with on Facebook. I could try calling someone on the phone, but if my hand starts shaking again, I might drop it, which could sound a lot worse than a car door slamming.

Happy 7th Anniversary!

If it weren’t for a reminder from Dave Olsen, winner of Season 4, I would have completely forgotten that today in 2005 was the television debut of Beauty and the Geek. Thus, I’d like to wish a happy anniversary to all my fellow beauties and geeks out there! … Okay, maybe happy anniversary to my fellow geeks and the beauties, too, but you get the idea.

Would you like to translate this page from Russian?

I’m trying to decide who is ultimately responsible for this, Google Translate or the Russian media, but I got a laugh out of it either way. I was looking at the statistics page here on the blog and saw that someone got referred to the website via a link from vk.com. Apparently, back in July of 2010, someone in Russia made a folder with a bunch of pictures from our season of Beauty and the Geek—mostly the promo pics showing the couples, each participant, a few production shots… I’m sure you could find all of them in various places throughout the Interwebs.

In this case, the link was in the comments below the picture of Scarlet and me. Several people were lamenting the fact that she had been murdered, something that which I addressed with a “Live In Peace” post around that time. It apparently relieved a lot of people and still does to this day—in the last two months, that post has averaged about three hits a day. That may not seem like much to you, but given how little traffic this blog sees on a regular basis, it’s significant.

But the important part isn’t the fact that so many people have been concerned about my partner’s death (or lack thereof) since the show aired in Russia—it’s the name of the folder where that picture was posted. If Google was right when I clicked on the Translate button, the television producers there decided to turn the title “Beauty and the Geek” into “Cheeky and the Freaks.” That’s awesome.

Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been… gone for years.

Okay, maybe you should call it a comeback.

I was just taking a look to see if anything was worth watching on YouTube before turning off the computer for the night and found something on my list of recommended videos on YouTube because… I have no idea why. Given that a lot of my searches involve Louis CK, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and highlights from NBA games… yeah. No idea why.

But at the top of the list, there was a link to Beauty and the Geek – ep 2 part 3/3. It turns out that last January, “MissIvanchy” posted every episode from Season 1 (broken into 3 segments per episode). If you’re interested, feel free to start from the beginning of Episode 1. Personally, I’m wondering what kind of comments people will be making after so long. (I hope they’ll be more interesting than how the beauties’ fashion sense is seven years out of date.)