Not game related...but...
I used to love the History Channel, before it became the Ancient Aliens Channel. Fine, I get that people want to hear about Ancient Aliens, but my biggest issue with H is the day long marathons of a single show.
I like American Pickers. I don't want 12 hours of it.I like Pawn Stars to an extant, but i don't want 12 hours of it.Ancient Aliens can go kiss my sphincter, but apparently that's H's number one show.
So aliens built the pyramids? But they used massive stone instead of metal, and they didn't bother installing lighting, air vents, air conditioning, or anything that would suggest that this was a structure they planned on using. No transporter pads? No control rooms? No complicated Frank Loyd Wright designs?
Nope. Just a pile of (admittedly very heavy) stones.
I'd like to put forward a theory.
Maybe they were capable of doing these incredible things because they weren't distracted by television, radio, pop culture, celebrity news, and the like. I think if I were that bored, I would eventually build a pyramid and have the time to figure out how to do it with heavy stone. In fact, I would need to build that pyramid because just standing around watching cattle poop would drive me crazy.
Now, I liked the movie Chariots of the Gods. It asked some interesting questions. But by turning that book/movie into a regular television series is that they started scraping the bottom of the barrel for conspiracy theory rather quickly.
Egyption gods with animal heads? Clearly the Egyptians witnessed genetic tampering by aliens!
No dude. They had animations and when they looked around and noticed that animals were tougher, stronger, poisonous, and could also fly, they imagined that a superior being would have those traits. Hell, I was doodling stuff like that on my notebooks before I had even heard of aliens or genetic manipulation.
So as much as Ancient Aliens disgusts me, it wasn't the final nail in the coffin. It was the blocks of days where no history, nothing that enhances my education, could be viewed on a channel that was supposed to be about education.
Strangely enough, I blame the Discovery Channel for this. Specifically Deadliest Catch.Deadliest Catch came on to the scene like gang busters. I admit I watched 3 seasons of it and enjoyed it. The fact that it was reality TV (which is notoriously cheap to make) meant that Discovery had a real cash cow. So History Channel did what all competitors do, they tried do the same thing.
Axe MenIce Road TruckersSwamp People...all of these shows sucked and presented the fact that History Channel was going to dump history in favor of reality TV.
Then they found a hit, by appealing to the lowest common denominators. Ancient Aliens. Other channels have their craptastic shows too.
Honey Boo Boo -The (Frakkin') Learning ChannelDuck Dynasty - A&EDiscovery Channel countered flagging ratings with Amish Mafia.
Ladies and gentlemen, education is dead and we killed it, because they are just feeding us what we want to watch.
On a side note, I recently watched a History Channel Documentary that I (had to find) on Youtube about Chinese Super Ships. Everything was going great until they decided to look for an ancient Chinese ship that proved America was discovered by the Chinese and not Columbus. How were they looking for the ship? With a Frakkin' Dowser, you know the guys who use the sticks and the power of ESP to find wells. Apparently it's supposed to work on ancient ships too.
And on a last side note, sure the Chinese could have made it here. So could the Vikings. But if you want to know who discovered America, ask the Native Americans. I'm pretty sure they beat everybody here.
