Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Night time

The cats are zooming around the house like they're in some kind of kitteh relay race. It's 47°F (8°C) outside, the windows are open, and the air smells like Autumn.

The Mister is playing World of Warcraft with some guildies. I'd be playing except I'm going to shuffle off to sleep early (as in any minute now), to try to make it to work early tomorrow.

So instead of playing I watched Ghost Hunters. It's a little guilty pleasure of mine. The Mister won't watch it. He rolls his eyes when I watch it, in fact. But it's my favorite ghost show, and I admit to watching quite a lot of shows about hauntings. NOT Most Haunted, though. Can't stand a show that features ghost hunters who all freak out every time an old house creaks, or a spider web brushes their faces.

I believe in ghosts, but I don't believe in an awful lot of the things people on TV take as evidence of hauntings. Even so, I can enjoy shows about hauntings even if I'm highly skeptical about the "hunting" methods employed in said show; or programs that are just recountings of tragic events, rumors and annecdotes, mixed with spooky background music, old photos and a melodramatic narrator for extra flavor. I've got a high tolerance for silliness when it comes to this kind of show. But I can't stand a bunch of "investigators" who get hysterical when anything vaguely unexpected happens.

Why does that draw viewers? Would a show about spiders or snakes do well if the host flipped out every time they found a creepy critter? Or if they assumed every rustle in the underbrush was a man-eating viper of mamoth proportions, and they fled instead of trying to determine the truth of the matter?

Oh, and before you point at me and say, "Hey, don't you have problems with nightmares? Should you be watching ghost shows before bed?" I can assure you that if my nightmares were about normal nightmarey kinds of things like ghosts, I'd go cold turkey on episodes of Ghost Hunters at bedtime.

Speaking of which, it's past time to get m'self to sleep.

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