Everything Your Grandmother Warned You About And More

It's true you know . . . it will make you go blind.

I know I shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes, but this is a whole lot more amusing than some anti-inflammatory drug that causes liver damage.

Next thing you know, doctors will start reporting clients with hairy palms.



Anyway, another news item mentioned an American Idol type show becoming immensely popular in China.

I was there a little more than a year ago, and television was very obviously becoming much more Westernized. While they weren't in our current reality show frenzy, it's a perfectly logical next step.

They still have variety shows, which was rather amusing. But considering that the variety shows featured everything from motivational speakers who quoted Martin Luther King Jr. to lounge singers with sultry voices clad in glimmering gold gowns, no one should be surprised that shows like American Idol or Star Search are popping up in China.

Besides that, they had their twenty four hour news channels, and channels devoted to stocks and economic news. And they had soap operas, some domestic, some dubbed from their original Japanese.

My grandparents watched all of it.

It's not surprising at all that with so many more people investing, with consumer spending on the upswing, that China is a huge television market. It will be more interesting though, to see what happens when people start airing more controversial shows. Right now, from what I could tell, most of the televised material is still "safe." What happens when something like South Park comes out? What will the government do?

It might have happened already, and I just didn't hear about it.


And finally, two cents for anyone who can tell me which of the following terms I just made up:

Death Metal
Doom Metal
Rage Metal
Nu Metal
Thrash Metal
Black Metal

For extra credit, tell me what the difference is between these types of metal.

Thank You