Chachi is a loser but chefs rule

I've tried overcoming my addictions, but I've learned to just give in to them: I am a reality TV show junkie.

Can't help it. Won't help it. The programs are like eating potato chips. It's too hard to stop after just one. I'll watch Gene Simmons play house with his Playboy Playmate and their two very normal and funny kids; Kathy Griffin make fun of her life and everyone else's on My Life on the D-List; the Little People family who live on a Oregon farm, keep an extremely messy house and drive really big trucks; and creeky old leech Hugh Hefner and his posse of bottled blondes romp around his (kind of tacky) Holmby Hills Mansion.

I do have my limits, tho. I tried to watch that new Chachi is a Single, Middle-Aged Loser series and Scott Baio comes across as, well, pretty much a turd. (It's also faker than the normal fakeness of reality TV; he and his GIRLFRIEND are having a baby.)

Then, there are the three reality TV culinary competitions: Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star. OK, now we're talking. Here's my story today about the trio of shows. (Don't you just love yelling at the TV when the chefs do something really stupid like when Jen from Hell's Kitchen tried to pick spaghetti out of the TRASHCAN and serve it to someone?? Man, that's scary, but don't think it doesn't happen. I remember seeing a waitress where I once worked long, long ago, scoop up some rolls she dropped on the floor, put them in basket and take them out to a waiting table.)

According to The Food Network, the July 15 episode of "The Next Food Network Star" was the most highly rated telecast in the network’s history.