Wife Swap and more
So Friday, on ABC's show WifeSwap, a family from rural Virginia was swapped with a family from a Jersey suburb. The reason this is interesting is because I live in the rural Virginia county.
The Virginia family lived without electricity, raised goats and chickens, homeschooled the two girls when they weren't traveling as a family folk band, shared bathwater, and was otherwise rather eccentric. The family they were swapped with was in New Jersey and embodied every materialistic stereotype on the planet: McMansion, mother with too much plastic surgery (boobs, duck lips, fake-bake), whipped father and spoiled kids. The show takes the moms from both families and swaps them for two weeks. The first week, the mothers have to live as their counterpart lives. The second week, they are allowed to make changes. In some episodes, the families learn something and grow but in most I think it is just about the manufactured drama.
The JerseyWife was so completely awful, she made the VA family and their weird lifestyle look normal and reasonable. She spent the entire first week complaining and whining and the second week trying to force her lack of morals/respect on the family. The first week they went shopping at the thrift store that is down the street from where I live and watching her walk down the one main street in the town in her hideous leopard print fur would have gotten big money if we had known it was happening. It was really funny because from what little was shown of the town, you'd never know that the median family income in the county is $75,000 and that lots of people here live in McMansions that are even more McMansion-y than the JerseyMom's custom built McMansion. At her own home, JerseyMom spent 90 minutes a day getting ready, hair-sprayed and shellacked her kids the same way she did herself, spent her evenings partying with friends while her whipped husband took care of the kids and bought them more toys to apologize for not being there emotionally.
The VAmom tried to get the Jersey family see how dead their lives were by having them donate a few items of clothing, teach the kids to do chores for a reward, and turned off the power so they couldn't play video games and had to spend time as a family. Some of her ideas were over-the-top, but otherwise I agree with her. The Jersey family was just living a life of more-more-more and trying to out-do the Jonses. The whipped husband seemed to be starting to realize this during the episode but there was no way he could really admit it without having to admit how bad the family was and I don't think anyone would do that on national television. The JerseyMom was so self-involved, she didn't learn anything. She also called the VAfather names in front of the children and tried to get physical in a fight. She called the guy sasquash (sa-SQUASH?? Yeah, that's what she did) and attempted to embarrass him in front of an entire department store.
Oh yeah, and I am NOT going to become a fan of folk music any time soon. If ever.
In other news, I went to the Fredericksburg Library book sale. Got a few books and scoped out what was there to come back on Tuesday when it is box day. 5.00 for a box of books. Last time I got seventy books in that box. w00t! Then we went to the mall and I got a wedding gift for a coworker. I was going to get him a place-setting of china but with all my discounts and whatnot, I got two because they were that much on sale. And really, I could probably get one of my other coworkers to take one off my hands if I have regrets about the cost. After that, we went to see Monsters vs. Aliens. It was...mostly cute. Not going to be a classic or anything and seemed a little rushed. Dreamworks doesn't seem to take as much care with story as Pixar does and it shows. A lot of the lines were intended to be funny-for-adults winky lines but they just came off as awkward. But we saw it in 3D and that was pretty cool. The trailer (why are they called trailers when it preceedes the movie?) for Up looked awesome so that one I'll definitely go see. The Star Trek trailer looked...I don't know. We'll see.
The Virginia family lived without electricity, raised goats and chickens, homeschooled the two girls when they weren't traveling as a family folk band, shared bathwater, and was otherwise rather eccentric. The family they were swapped with was in New Jersey and embodied every materialistic stereotype on the planet: McMansion, mother with too much plastic surgery (boobs, duck lips, fake-bake), whipped father and spoiled kids. The show takes the moms from both families and swaps them for two weeks. The first week, the mothers have to live as their counterpart lives. The second week, they are allowed to make changes. In some episodes, the families learn something and grow but in most I think it is just about the manufactured drama.
The JerseyWife was so completely awful, she made the VA family and their weird lifestyle look normal and reasonable. She spent the entire first week complaining and whining and the second week trying to force her lack of morals/respect on the family. The first week they went shopping at the thrift store that is down the street from where I live and watching her walk down the one main street in the town in her hideous leopard print fur would have gotten big money if we had known it was happening. It was really funny because from what little was shown of the town, you'd never know that the median family income in the county is $75,000 and that lots of people here live in McMansions that are even more McMansion-y than the JerseyMom's custom built McMansion. At her own home, JerseyMom spent 90 minutes a day getting ready, hair-sprayed and shellacked her kids the same way she did herself, spent her evenings partying with friends while her whipped husband took care of the kids and bought them more toys to apologize for not being there emotionally.
The VAmom tried to get the Jersey family see how dead their lives were by having them donate a few items of clothing, teach the kids to do chores for a reward, and turned off the power so they couldn't play video games and had to spend time as a family. Some of her ideas were over-the-top, but otherwise I agree with her. The Jersey family was just living a life of more-more-more and trying to out-do the Jonses. The whipped husband seemed to be starting to realize this during the episode but there was no way he could really admit it without having to admit how bad the family was and I don't think anyone would do that on national television. The JerseyMom was so self-involved, she didn't learn anything. She also called the VAfather names in front of the children and tried to get physical in a fight. She called the guy sasquash (sa-SQUASH?? Yeah, that's what she did) and attempted to embarrass him in front of an entire department store.
Oh yeah, and I am NOT going to become a fan of folk music any time soon. If ever.
In other news, I went to the Fredericksburg Library book sale. Got a few books and scoped out what was there to come back on Tuesday when it is box day. 5.00 for a box of books. Last time I got seventy books in that box. w00t! Then we went to the mall and I got a wedding gift for a coworker. I was going to get him a place-setting of china but with all my discounts and whatnot, I got two because they were that much on sale. And really, I could probably get one of my other coworkers to take one off my hands if I have regrets about the cost. After that, we went to see Monsters vs. Aliens. It was...mostly cute. Not going to be a classic or anything and seemed a little rushed. Dreamworks doesn't seem to take as much care with story as Pixar does and it shows. A lot of the lines were intended to be funny-for-adults winky lines but they just came off as awkward. But we saw it in 3D and that was pretty cool. The trailer (why are they called trailers when it preceedes the movie?) for Up looked awesome so that one I'll definitely go see. The Star Trek trailer looked...I don't know. We'll see.