I go to Results (THE GYM!) 3-4 times a week and usually spend about 25 minutes on the cardio machines. There’s six televisions up there in the front of the room, so my buddy and I stake out the ellipticals closest to the TVs and watch to our heart’s content. It makes those 25 minutes and 400 calories go by fast.

But yesterday, I went by myself and had the misfortune of watching Deal or No Deal! I heard a little about this and how wildly popular it was, but I didn’t have a clue what it was about. It’s hosted by Howie Mandel.

The last time I saw him, he looked like this.

All those cute jewfro locks have now been magically transformed into a demonic-looking soul patch.

Nevertheless, his bubbly personality continues to show through; he’s actually a pretty good game show host.

But the game - oh. my. god. There’s 26 cases, each with a dollar amount ranging from $.01 to $1,000,000 in known intervals. The contestant has to pick one of the briefcases, and then open up some of the remaining briefcases to see how likely it is that the first briefcase has a large amount of money inside it. Every now and then, the banker will make an offer to the contestant to buy that first briefcase; the contestant needs to weight the offer against the likelihood the briefcase is loaded, and then he/she says, Deal or No Deal!

If that didn’t make sense, just read the Wikipedia article. It’s about financial risk. The premise is derivative. It’s a totally capitalist version of Millionaire and it plays with people’s dreams of hitting it rich. I scoffed at the show.

Twenty minutes later, I was hooked. I was screaming at the contestant to say, Deal! Deal! at offers of $100,000, $202,000. And he kept saying, No Deal!

Bryan Thompson was last night’s contestant. He is the current mayor of Brunswick, Georgia, and one of the most irritating game show contestant I have ever seen. Everything about him annoyedme. His lips, his hairdo, his glasses, the way he’d spin around and pump his fist every time he opened up a briefcase with a low amount. Throughout the one-hour ordeal, not one spot of perspiration appeared on his freshly-pressed shirt. His mouth was astonishingly huge. You could lipread him from the next state over.

He had his city council sitting in the audience to advise him on his decisions. There was a live satellite feed of the plump citizens of Brunswick yelling at him, Deal! No Deal! Deal! I wanted him to lose. But I wanted him to win, too.

To make a long story short, he managed to get down to 2 remaining briefcases and took an offer for $202,000. Good thing, because the first briefcase he chose had only $50,000.

And it was a good thing for me, as well, since I couldn’t get off the cardio for a hour and ten minutes, and burnt over 800 calories. Thank you, Howie Mandel.

I’m not even going to mention that I was also watching Wife Swap simultaneously. It was equally mindblowing. TVs are the best thing to happen to exercise machines.