The Vanilla Ice Project

Winter has descended upon Portland--it's been raining for oh, like ever, the snow is starting to pile up, it's cold and crisp in the morning and it's dark at 4:30pm. In a valiant effort to prevent the Hoybook household from falling in the depths of severe cases of SAD, we decided to buy ourselves some cable television. (Actually, to be completely honest, after we moved, we couldn't get our digital converter box to work anymore and football season was beckoning.) Anyway, part of the "welcome offer" was that we get all of the channels (yes, ALL of them) free for three months. Three glorious months.

Well, what I thought and predicted would happen, has. I watch junk. More specifically, reality television junk. I keep up with the Kardashians, know the details of the lives of crazy Beverly Hills housewives and am getting caught up on past seasons of America's Next Top Model. I know! Junk right? I should use cable for good, but instead, I use it for evil. If you haven't seen me for week, check the couch.

On Friday night, B and I were doing a little channel surfing and since we have ALL the channels, you can surf upon some interesting stuff. So, when we saw "The Vanilla Ice Project" pop up on the menu, we bit. "The Vanilla Ice Project" is a reality show on the DIY network which follows rapper Vanilla Ice around Palm Beach while he buys, fixes up and flips a 7,000 square foot mansion. He has this tattooed posse that follows him around to do some of the dirty work and on Friday's episode, he was wearing a shirt with a handgun on it followed by the words "Pimps & Ho's". It's mostly ridiculous.

Ok, ok, it's definitely all ridiculous, but here's my question: what came first?

Did they find Vanilla Ice and say, "Hey Vanilla Ice, what are you doing these days?" "Oh, you're flipping houses?" "We should make a show about that."

or

Did they have a show about flipping houses and sat around a table and thought, "Who would be the best host for this?" "Oh, yeah, Vanilla Ice!"

Talk amongst yourselves. I have to go, there's a Project Runway marathon on.