I spent the week (end) on the Jersey Shore

Back in my early twenties I spent four months on a cross country road trip through Canada and the US. I was with my best friend from University and we drove and slept all over the US and Canadialand in our two tone blue Mercury Marquis - cleverly named "Bluey". One of our stops was New Jersey to meet up with one half of an awesome couple we had met in the US Virgin Islands.

This couple had an incredibly romantic story. They had dated in High School, broken up and gone on with their lives. She had gotten married, had kids and sadly divorced. He had remained single. They reconnected and were living happily ever after. Great story, great couple. They took us to the this great bar on the other side of the island and introduced us to the most fantastic drink ever - a Bushwacker (Bailey's, Amaretto, Kahlua, Rum, Grand Marnier, Creme of Coconut - deadly delishness!!!). They were fun and interesting and had a great story. They said that if we were ever heading to Jersey (where she lived) or Ottawa (where he lived), we could deffo stay with them.

So we called her from Maryland and the silence on the phone when we announced that we were on our way was a little scary. After a few moments of awkward silence she confessed to us that 99% of the romantic story outlined above was true. The one tiny detail they had left out was that she was still married. So instead of a romantic vacation between two former flames who had magically reconnected, we had been privy to a dirrty weekend between a cheater and her lover.

So long story short, we were welcome to come stay, but she was actually heading to the famed Jersey Shore for a week with her children, friends, friends kids, nannies, and her secret lover and we should go down there with them instead. And we did. It was one of the crazier weeks of our life. Not only did we meet her husband and have to continue the lie she had told about her trip to the Caribbean, but we also had to aid in the cover-up during the week away with a bunch of kids. It was a little nutty. There were two houses and hotel room to aid in the conspiracy, an elaborate story about why her lover was there, and we had to continually lie to a bunch of children and their nannies (who clearly knew what was up & were snickering about it the whole time).

It was a wild and crazy week on the Jersey Shore. But my week ain't got nothing on the insanity that is MTV's newest reality show - aptly titled Jersey Shore. Eight 20-something Italian-American shacked up in a house together for the summer. From the first two episodes I have generalised that all Italian-Americans have nicknames - like Sweetheart and my personal favourite "The Situation". Also, all Italian-American males look like poster children for roid rage. Apparently guido and guidette are acceptable terms of endearment for people of Italian-American descent. It takes some guidettes about 4 hours to get ready to go out to a club. Italian-Americans pray before meals, but have no problem f*cking the first skank that takes her g-string off in your hot tub. I think that this show will fill the void left by The Hills and The City very nicely.

It has vapid whores who do not know how to dress, obscenely muscled chauvinistic men who like to punch things, high dramarama, higher hemlines, and even higher hair. There are more styling products in this show than I have ever encountered on television - even more than Susan Lucci on All My Children. It is crazy ridiculously atrocious television and I will be watching it every week.

I do not recall any Guido's or Guidette's in my week at the Jersey Shore. The dysfunction I was dealing with was total and complete WASP dysfunction. We do not keep in touch with either of them. We did stay with him in Ottawa, but lost touch after a few years. One day I will write a book, or at least a different kind of blog about my travel stories...... This one is one of the saner normal things that happened during those 4 months on the road. Eek! The memories....

XO

Kristen > The Cast of The Hills

Last night, according to all reports, the Bitch was Back. And no I am not referring to the awesome and fantastic news that Heather Locklear is bringing her micro-mini back to Melrose Place. And to that I say - ah-mazing. I - of course - am referring to the only other bitch in Hollyweird - Kristin Cavallari, who is returning to her rightful place as Queen Bee-yotch on MTV's highest rated show - The Hills.

I was planning on breaking up with The Hills - relegating it to the "Oh I don't watch that anymore" pile. I know how contrived and ridiculous the show is. It is a guilty pleasure, something I know is bad for me, but I have trouble resisting. But those pesky marketing people at MTV have made it virtually impossible to resist watching. The hype surrounding the return of KC has been impressive to say the least and these photos that were released a few days ago only serve to continue to pique my interest. Bastards.

There are tons of pics on MTV's site - but these were my personal faves. The ones of Lo, Stephanie and the annoying as f*ck Speidi are from March, but the rest are fairly recent. These pictures are nothing compared to the recent revelations about how much these reality TV stars make per episode.

Jay Leno was on Oprah last week and he explained that the shift away from scripted TV is partly a cost-saver on the part of the network. Considering these figures - which are being deny deny denied by the cast - I am not sure if this is a valid argument in this case!

According to The Daily Beast: "Cavallari is being paid $90,000 an episode, which is almost as much as Conrad was making: $125,000 an episode (or $2.5 million a year), according to a person with knowledge of the show’s contracts. Conrad’s deal stipulated that no other star’s salary could match hers while she was on The Hills, but those of supporting cast members Audrina Patridge, Lauren “Lo” Bosworth, and Montag come close: $100,000 a show. As for Pratt, his rate is a slightly less at $65,000 per show, because he only joined as a regular in 2008. (In comparison, the stars of The Real Housewives series receive a reported $30,000 a show.) In the case of Brody Jenner, Conrad’s BFFWB (Best Friend Forever With Benefits), he takes in $45,000."

And this does not include promotional appearance fees, clothing lines, book deals and the myriad of other opportunities that have been afforded to these reality "stars." Holy..... getting paid that much to supposedly live your life? Most people don't even make that a year...... and these twits are being paid ridiculous amounts of cash to go for lunch, pretend to fight, pretend to love and even pretend to be friends. All of them pretty much also pretend to think.....KC and Lo are not included in this as they are smart cookies.

The chick in the Uglee-ass white pants with black boots combo is Stacie - who is apparently playing LC's wing-woman. Every uber-bitch needs one chick on their side - even if it is a trashy bartender from an even trashier dive bar. If you don't recall who Stacie is, she is the chick that Spencer the douche "flirted" with so as to create a storyline for Heidi the idiot and himself last season. And by "flirted" you know that I actually mean that MTV paid to shoot in a bar where she may or may not have actually worked......

This season is shaping up to be banana's. Don't judge me. I know it is bullsh*t. I know that there are better things on. I even know that I should not be watching a show that contributes to the dumbing down of teenagers everywhere. But I can't help myself......

And to continue my descent into depravity and stupidity.....

I wasn't feeling great last Sunday, so I hibernated for the day. Very exciting stuff - cleaned my apartment, cleared out some stuff off of my PVR, what a glamorous life I lead. I also got sucked in to watching most of Season 1 of The City on MTV...... And now I am waiting with baited breath for the start of Season 2 tonight. Crap crap crap. Why do I allow myself to watch this swill. Beautiful rich people, engaged in the most ridiculous contrived faux-storylines.

A few new cast members have turned up this year to keep things interesting. Roxy Olin in the middle is apparently a friend of Whit's from high school and seems to be being groomed as the new bitch on the east coast. It looks like Olivia will have her hands full with her new colleagues at Elle Magazine.

I hate myself enough for watching these shows......Don't judge me.

XO

You're Gonna Love my nuts??? Bwah ha ha ha

I don't watch infomercials very much. In honesty, I don't actually watch TV ads in general very much. I either fast forward through them or flick to something else. But tonight while watching the AFL Grand Final on TSN (Australian Football League aka Aussie Rules aka the best sport ever), I was to busy filing my nails (cause it was a nailbiter) to bother switching channels.

And boy am I glad I didn't. Cause, OMFG........ have you seen this? He's been around for a while, but I had never seen the amazingness that is Vince - the Slap Chop guy. From his first sentence - "Slapping your troubles away", to it stopping me from having a boring life cause it will unboring my tuna, to my personal fave : "you're gonna love my nuts"

I really have nothing else to say. I think that Vince should speak for himself. I kinda want to get a Slap Chop, simply to get the Graty..... Oh Graty. You make cheese so delicious.

XO

Emmy Don't's

And I am not talking about what they are wearing as I actually think the Kardashian sisters look pretty good. I am talking about them being at the Emmy's at all. I mean WTF? Did the Emmy people get a ton of actual TV celebrities cancel at the last minute, so they called the Kardashians. They would have been correct in their assumption that the entire Kardashian clan was sitting around in formal attire, fully made-up hoping against hope they would get a call saying there was room for them at The Emmy's. The other sister was also waiting, but she was distracted by something shiny, so these two got to go.

I honestly had to Google "Phoebe Price" to try and figure out exactly what it is that she has done to be considered a celebrity. That didn't really help. I still don't know who this woman is, why she is famous and what her purpose is? According to Wikipedia, she was born in 1932 and her occupation is basically famewhore. She looks like a porn star - well, "star" maybe stretching it a bit. She looks like the "other" girl in a threesome. You know the one..... the one the guy f*cks in the ass while eating out the actual star.

Full Emmy wrap up to come tomorrow. This one is just a little tease :)

XO