Am I a bad person...?

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...for actually enjoying Ghost Adventures on The Travel Channel? I just discovered the show since my cable provider picked up the HD version of the network a few weeks ago. It's sad to say but I'm freakin' hooked now with my ass parked every Friday night. Yes, I have no social life, that should be without question considering my tendency to post at 2 a.m. on weekends. I'm even finding myself combing through the channel's digital guide to see if any episodes get stuck in other timeslots.

I've watched a fair share of paranormal shows, with a glut of Ghost Hunters naturally, but Ghost Adventures obviously plays up its scenarios with a sort of Paranormal Activity-type flare. This might come as sacrilege, but TAPS has personally become rather old hat after one hundred episodes. I've never been ghost hunting, though I imagine Ghost Hunters isn't too far from the reality of the hobby/pastime/profession. Long hours spent with little-to-no evidence of any worth. That tends to get boring after awhile, though the show is smart in making you not only tune in for the ghosts, but also to keep up with the investigators.

In contrast, Ghost Adventures delivers what I like in this type of television in spades at the expense of damn near any credibility. Wall-to-wall sightings where every faint bump in the dark, fleeting speck of dust, fluttering bug, and more-than-likely faked EVP (that almost happens constantly) is met with an assault of beeped cursing and astonished gasps of the words in the picture to the left. A loud and often times annoying shower of "ghosts, dude!" with no debunking of any occurrence in sight. Zak Bagans, the buffed-out leader of the three-man crew, is like the King Douche of the world of paranormal investigation. The guy wears foundation make-up on-camera, tight Affliction knockoff t-shirts, and presumably reeks of Axe body spray while trying to not stab people with his greasy cemented spiked hair.

The crew also breaks every guideline in dealing with the supernatural. Sure, let's conduct a voodoo ritual on burial grounds, fuck around with Ouija boards, angrily provoke spirit/demonic forces verbally, and command them to use our bodily energy to manifest themselves. Sometimes a certain member will start acting standoffish which is of course played up as temporary possession. Oh, I'm about to piss myself. They even have weird gizmo/props like a electromagnetic dictionary that spirits can use to supposedly call up words to communicate with the crew. I'm also sure other, more serious investigators get miffed at some of the places they get to explore, like Italy's once plague-ridden Poveglia Island. Still, I can't stop watching for the fluffed-up creepiness, and it's got to be more respectable to watch this than Biography's Celebrity Ghost Stories and Animal Planet's The Haunted concerning ghostly pets. Anyone else brave enough to admit to being a Ghost Adventures fan?

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