Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

It takes a mind like that of Howard Stern to come up with the idea of a beauty pageant for the mistresses of Tiger Woods.  And to have the $100,000 prize come from AshleyMadison.com, which is a dating website for married people.  From this great mind comes a partnership with jeweler Steven Singer, famous for his “I Hate Steven Singer” campaigns.  Singer has designed another prize for the winner of the competition, and it’s almost (but not quite) worth the humiliation—provided that you’ve already been suitably humiliated by having your name in every newspaper, tabloid, and website as a home-wrecking bimbo.  It is a 3-carat black diamond engagement ring, with the center stone surrounded by an additional half-carat of stones, all set in platinum.  The only thing that doesn’t come with it is dignity.  Or an engagement. 

I wonder if it's fun to be completely shameless.

As of today, one of the four confirmed contestants seems to have backed out.  Las Vegas odds-makers are betting that the pageant will never even take place.  Odds are that Tiger Woods will choose to pay each of the women more than 100 grand and one diamond ring to not compete.  He can afford it.  What he cannot afford is to have us all still talking about this more than three months after mistresses started appearing like teenage boys at a Jenna Jameson book signing.  And yet here were all are, with Howard Stern stoking the flames to make sure that Tiger doesn’t live this down until Stern builds another wing for his museum of jackassery. 

And Sirius XM is allowing him to host the pageant live, on his show March 10.  As for the ring, Ashley Madison and Steven Singer put their heads together to come up with what they’re calling the ‘non-engagement ring’.  Singer released a statement that, “…the mistress never gets the ring, so we’ve created the ‘non-engagement’ ring for the winner of the beauty pageant…It’s now the official mistress ring”.  And what a thing for a young woman to brag to her friends about!  At least it’s better than the “I slept with a Masters winner and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirt.  In the press release issued by Steven Singer Jewelers, they say, “The center stone is a 3- carat total weight black diamond.  The black diamond in the center of the ‘non-engagement’ ring speaks very well for the purpose: mysterious, mystical and quite unique”. 

Mystical.  Not exactly the word one might choose to describe the parade of skanks willing to not only sleep with a married athlete because he’s famous, but also participate in a contest to determine who is the best person to cheat on your wife with.  The pageant, arranged by Stern himself, is said to include “bikini” and “talent” portions.  Talent is a relative thing, and when it’s a competition that revolves around marital infidelity, one shudders to think what Stern will ask the contestants to do.  Aside from running to the tabloids the minute the story broke, that is.  Gotta cash in the Golden Ticket while it’s still valid, ladies!

I’m with Vegas on this one.  It won’t happen.  But it’s gotten Howard Stern the attention he desperately craves.  Mission accomplished, big guy.

We all felt kind of bad for Sienna Miller in 2005, when her fiancé, actor Jude Law, cheated on her with the nanny of his three children.  The (at the time) young starlet took her broken heart—and her platinum diamond engagement ring—into a string of short-lived relationships.  It seemed that she had dodged a bullet, getting away from the philandering Brit before they made their union legal.  And then we stopped feeling sorry for her when she started dating Balthazar Getty, a married father of four.  Reports said that he was ‘estranged’ from his wife.  Maybe she started to feel distant after she saw pictures of a topless Sienna Miller crawling all over her husband on a yacht in Italy. 

"Sienna, did you the rack on...wait, never mind."

In the meantime, Jude Law kept himself busy with actress Susan Hoecke, model Lily Cole, singer Norah Jones, heiress Kimberly Stewart, and some bartender/model/actress (and former nanny!) named Samantha Burke.  To increase his ordinarily-high sleaze factor, he knocked Burke up and she gave birth to his fourth child on September 22, 2009, although she was unable to tell him by phone, as he had already disconnected that number.  He finally got around to meeting his new baby daughter in late February of this year.  No wonder the ladies love him.  He’s chock-full of care and concern for others. 

And poor, sad Sienna, in her attempts to recover from the 2005 split from her reptilian ex, dated Hayden Christensen, James Franco, Josh Hartnett, P. Diddy, and Rhys Ifans.  While she and the uncomfortably gaunt Ifans were madly in love, they had a very public, ahem, encounter while on an international flight.  Despite their undying passion for one another, Ifans started to get suspicious of his lady love and she responded by dumping him over the phone from Prague. 

Having already torn through the celebrity and celebrity-wannabe phonebooks, Miller and Law reunited last fall at the urging of Jonny Lee Miller, who used to be married to husband-thief Angelina Jolie. 

Is this getting creepy, or is it just me?

Anyway, the couple reconciled, and earlier this month, Sienna resurrected the engagement ring she got from law five years ago, although she is not, evidently, wearing it on her wedding finger.  She is also going to move back to the US while Law is working on his new movie, the ironically-named Contagion.  Sienna, it seems, doesn’t want to let her boyfriend out of her sight for even two seconds, so she’s moving in with him.  Over the holidays, she agreed to vacation with Law and his first three kinds ONLY if he left the nanny at home.  Law dutifully sent his current nanny back to England.

Not that there are trust issues or anything.

So they’re back together, and I couldn’t imagine a couple more perfectly suited for one another.

Why did so many people think that Avatar deserved to win Best Picture and Best Director at the 2010 Oscars?  Because it made boatloads of money?  Because CGI has never looked so good?  Because James Cameron’s ego needed a golden man to go next to his Golden Globe?  Just because a lot of people like something doesn’t mean it is high-quality.  Has anyone ever noticed that Jennifer Lopez can’t sing well at all?  She’s made a lot of money off of album sales, though.  And that whole Twilight saga?  Millions upon millions of dollars coming in when I couldn’t even make it to page 15 in the first book without a strong latte, several yawns, and a wish that I brought something else to read. 

At last night’s Academy Awards, despite Avatar having trounced The Hurt Locker at the Golden Globes, Kathryn Bigelow got to look back at her ex-husband and his big budgets blockbusters and laugh.  The Hurt Locker, a film about real people—none of them played by bankable “movie stars”—who defuse bombs in Iraq, took home the Best Picture Oscar, and Bigelow won for Best Director.  It was the first time ever (really, ever!) that a woman won the Best Director category.  And it was for a film that really didn’t make that much money.  It took in about $21 million compared to Avatar’s $2.5 billion. 

"Tell Jim he can check his ego over THERE."

But it was Kathryn Bigelow, dressed in a silver-gray gown and a single bracelet encrusted with diamonds, who accepted the award from Barbra Streisand (who was characteristically draped in diamonds).  And now the discussion has become all about why she ‘really’ won.  I hear some of the guys around me (all of whom clearly have some kind of a death wish) saying that she won not because she deserved the award, but because the Academy felt that they needed to give the award to either Bigelow for her two x-chromosomes or Lee Daniel for his blackness. 

Uh-huh. 

Everyone knows, after going through the recent Presidential election, that Americans are more likely to honor a black man than a white woman.  Icky girl parts turn voters of all kinds off.  Unless they’re really, really deserving of something.

The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have to exercise a bit of self-control when it comes to ticket sales.  How do you honor a movie that was computer-generated?  How do you honor a director who reveled in a plot as overused as the Lindsay Lohan Suite at the Betty Ford Clinic?  Yeah, I liked that whole storyline—the “savage natives” turning out to be kind victims of the destruction of their environment and all—when it was called Pocahontas and I read it as a child.  I even endured the same plot when it was remade as Dances with Wolves.  I’m over it now.  I get it.  Whitey is killing the planet.  Can we move on?

The Hurt Locker is relevant, real, moving, and, at times, funny.  It is a snapshot of right now, and well-framed.  Kathryn Bigelow directed actual people and made relative-nobody Jeremy Renner a star.  The “who?” of several months ago scored Jessica Simpson’s phone number at an industry party last week.   And he didn’t have to dye himself blue to do it.

James Cameron claims to be proud of his ex-wife, but we all know that when he got home and changed into his Avatar pjs and climbed between his Avatar sheets, he was crying into his Neytiri pillowcase.

During this year’s Winter Olympics, figure skating got more attention than it has since the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding incident in 1994.  Lacking any real scandals, the media decided to make a really, really big deal out of an Olympic figure skater possibly being gay.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Seriously, was anyone surprised?

Yes, ladies and gentleman, Olympic skater and three-time US Champion Johnny Weir is probably not heterosexual.  And he’s not the first member of the Boy’s Club to compete.  It was positively shocking to many people when former US Champion Rudy Galindo came out in 1995.  For some reason.  I mean, really?  Is there any sport gayer than figure skating?  Yeah, of course there are a few heteros in the mix, as Elvis Stojko is very quick (and loud) to point out.  There’s also always a straight guy competing on Project Runway.  Remember that biker guy who favored tight black jeans…wait, never mind.  There are just some places that we should not be surprised to find our same-sex-loving male  friends, and figure skating ranks pretty well near the top.  It’s up there with fashion design and hairdressing. 

But this year, the question was actually posed: “Is Johnny Weir too gay for the Olympics?”  Some of us didn’t feel such a thing is possible.  Macho manly-man and adamantly heterosexual Elvis Stojko—a 37-year old single former Olympian who has never dated anyone, ever—has said that figure skating should be about “masculinity, strength, and power”.  Kinda makes you wonder why he didn’t play hockey instead.  Or not. 

But Weir is very much his own man.  The aspiring fashion designer who is responsible for most of his own costumes has said, “I love beautiful things, and if that means having a fur coat or diamonds or even if I want to wear a tiara someday, then that’s just the way it’s going to be”.  He likes to wear his lip gloss, and who of us will ever forget the night he was robbed of a medal but showed dignity and grace, wearing a crown of roses and carrying an enormous rose bouquet from his fans?  When asked about whether he was disappointed with the results of the competition, he waxed philosophical, saying, “As Lady Gaga would say, ‘I have all my role models out there’.  I may not be the most decorated person in the skating world, but judging by the audience reaction…they go on my journeys with me”. 

I dare say that he is probably the most decorated person in the skating world.  He just doesn’t have any Olympic medals.  He endured commentators laughing after saying his name; hearing competitors referred to as ‘athletes’ while he was ‘ever-flamboyant’; and even read that RDS, the Canadian ESPN, suggested that he undergo a gender test or compete against women.  The whole time, he kept his cool and, at a press conference to address the RDS comments, joked that he grew stubble to prove that he is, in fact, a man. 

The really, truly wild part about this whole story is that Johnny Weir has never once said that he is gay.  When asked, he has responded, “I don’t think it should matter”.  He’s right.  But there are one or two things that sort of give it away a little bit.  Maybe it’s the costumes, or the crown of roses, or the lip gloss, or performing in the Olympics to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”, or posing wearing platform stilettos, or the feathers and leather and fur. 

But will he ever say it out loud?  He might have to, because we might have some trouble seeing it through his p-p-p-p-poker face.

In a country that is so famous for its tiny clothes that it has a bikini wax named after it, Paris Hilton is still considered “too much”.  Hilton went to Brazil to film an ad for the new Devassa beer.  Evidently “devassa”, when translated from Portuguese with the most possible tact, means “naughty”.  So who better to call as a spokesmodel than the seldom-dressed heiress?  According to Brazil’s Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, the ad “devalues women—in particular, blond women”.   The odd part is that the black dress Hilton dons in the ad is much bigger than most of her clothes, and certainly bigger than the bikinis on women in TV ads for other beers.  But Eduardo Correia, spokesman for the private regulatory company Conar, said that, “The problem with the ad isn’t a lack of clothing, but its sensual nature.  A woman in a bikini on a beach isn’t necessarily sensual; it depends on context”. 

Why Would Anyone Object To Class Like This?

That’s Portuguese for “We want to be the only country whose airwaves are not clogged with vacant rich people who are famous for no good reason at all”.  I’ll bet they don’t even have a version of Survivor yet. 

Devassa’s “Bem Loura” (“Very Blond”) beer also uses Hilton in its advertising, and even goes so far as to have her in skimpy underwear and high heels—but that’s only an internet campaign, so Conar and the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs will have to quietly melt down over those.  If Conar decides that the ads are inappropriate, it can recommend that they be pulled from TV.  So far, in 23 years, not one of Conar’s recommendations has been ignored, so this doesn’t bode well for Devassa.  It is, however, fine for our Paris.  The check has, undoubtedly, already cleared.  Tinkerbell will always be well-supplied with diamond-studded dog collars.

In the meantime, Hilton continues to dodge rumors that she, herself, starts.  In a speech she gave at the Hearts for Hope benefit, she thanked her “future sister-in-law Casey”.  That’s boyfriend Doug Reinhardt’s sister.  Paris and Doug have been together for an unusually long time, and it has taken Reinhardt much longer to give Paris a gift to add to her collection of ostentatious, high-quality engagement rings.  By this point in most of Hilton’s relationships, they’ve already broken up.  Maybe they’re secretly engaged.  It seems unlikely, since nothing Paris Hilton ever does is kept quiet.  She was apparently feeling a bit needy at the event when she dropped the bomb that she has a ‘future sister-in-law’.  The tabloids didn’t disappoint.  They were filing stories before she even finished her high-pitched sentence. 

It isn’t unusual for American celebrities to star in ads overseas and make serious bank for their small efforts.  Hilton’s work in Rio came as no surprise.  Even legitimate, talented famous people can pick up a quick million for a day’s work.   A recent campaign had George Clooney selling espresso on billboards in Israel.  Now Paris, too, will be all over the Holy Land, advertising the Israeli Lottery.  The ad was filmed in New York, and promises that winner of the lottery will also get a shopping spree with Paris herself.  No word yet on whether that would happen in New York or Tel Aviv, although we can all make an educated guess.

Banned in Brazil but welcomed in Israel.  Who woulda thunk it?

It isn’t a skit from David Letterman, or a scene from High Fidelity.  It sounds like it, and maybe it should be, but it’s not.  The Pontiff released his list of Top 10 Rock albums in Sunday’s official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, despite the Holy See’s previous censure of rock music as “the devil’s work”.  Although it is clear that “The times, they are a-changin’”, Bob Dylan didn’t make the list.  The guy who wrote “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” didn’t make the papal cut.  In the article, Giuseppe Fiorentino and Gaetano Vallini explain that Dylan was left out of the Holy Father’s CD collection because he blazed the trail for untalented singers and songwriters who have “harshly tested the ears and patience of listeners” with their sad stories.  Ouch. 

I bet Dylan’s glad to be Jewish now.

Sometimes, even He must put His hands in the air, and wave 'em like he jus' don't care.

It seems a rather odd move for the Pontifex Maximus, known more for his—you know—holiness than his taste in music, to even contemplate the differences between different popular music acts.  Surely there are things to be blessed and Dan Brown books to denounce.  On the other hand, this is a man who likes to wear giant gold crosses encrusted with diamonds and emeralds, and favors large man-rings.  An ear for modern music was sure to come.  I guess.

The albums that made the list are, to say the least, baffling.  The Beatles’ Revolver is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest rock albums of all time, but, considering that many of the songs were either a direct or indirect result of LSD experimentation, it is surprising that the Holy See would embrace it.  Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon also made the cut.  Evidently, its original title, Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics, remains unknown to His Holiness.  Either that, or he, too, was mourning the loss of Syd Barrett to drug-addled insanity.  Speaking of which, David Crosby made the list with If Only I Could Remember My Name, and Fleetwood Mac with Rumours. 

How Michael Jackson’s Thriller got the spiritual nod, we may never understand.  According to the article, “Some songs seem to have been written yesterday…while others still send shivers down the spine for their illuminating simplicity and musical thrust”.  On one hand, it seems that the Father Confessor wouldn’t listen to pop music.  On the other hand, Michael Jackson and Catholic priests do have several things in common.  U2’s Achtung, Baby makes sense because there is a common thread of sanctimony.

Also making the list were Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly, Paul Simon’s Graceland, and Carlos Santana’s Supernatural.  Those can all get by without question.  The Pontiff has some ‘splainin’ to do about putting Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? On there.  Just having the word “glory in the title doesn’t make it Pope-worthy.

The Vatican stated that any of these albums would be perfect music for anyone marooned on a desert island.  Bob Dylan would probably disagree.  Or, most likely, laugh his unholy behind off.

Lil Wayne, our beloved Weezy, was supposed to be shipped off to the pokey for a one-year sentence relating to whatever “attempted” criminal gun possession is.  He delayed the term literally by the skin of his teeth.  The rapper apparently has to have some dental surgery that cannot wait until after he gets out.  If I were a rapper who decorated my teeth with thousands and thousands of diamonds, I’d be looking into getting those removed before I went to a place where an official Lil Wayne Diamond Tooth could potentially be traded for cartons of cigarettes and plenty of whatever that gross alcohol prisoners make themselves is called.  It is not that, however, that is bringing him to visit the dentist.  Weezy cracked a tooth somehow—and I think we’d all rather not know the details—and it needs to be fixed now.  After the procedure, he will require a week to heal, so he is expected to make his grand entrance to Riker’s Island Prison on March 2. 

20 Days Before These Choppers Are Being Openly Traded for Lucky Strikes.

It’s almost a shame.  Weezy spent what he thought was his last few nights partying it up.  He threw a party for family and friends at Dolce nightclub in Miami as a going away/Super Bowl celebration, recorded nine music videos in 48 hours, watched his Saints win the Super Bowl (He is proud New Orleans native), and posted an emotional goodbye to his fans.  He promised that he would not, as many of his incarcerated peers have, disappear from his fans’ radar while serving his time.  With nine videos—a few for the compilation We Are Young Money, a few for his recent release Rebirth, and a few for his upcoming album Tha Carter IV—he will not be forgotten.  With 20 extra days of freedom, he can easily record a whole new album, make a couple of videos, and possibly impregnate a few more young ladies before he turns himself in. 

As for seeing his Saints win the Super Bowl, Lil Wayne was sure to acknowledge them in the video that was supposed to air after he went to jail.  Although some of the dramatic effect was lost when he ended up getting a stay of execution (so to speak), he said: “Shout out to all the Saints out there, Reggie Bush, Colston, Drew Brees.  The Dome Patrol, Rickey Jackson for being elected to the Hall of Fame this year.  Pat Swilling.”

During his supposed-to-be-last-days, Wayne got in touch with Kobe Bryant and told him that he planned to record a song in his honor called “You Can’t Guard Me”.  Kobe showed up on set to help record a video to go with the song, which states: “He the greatest on the court/I’m the greatest on the verse”.  Wayne also spoke of a reunion of his former group the Hot Boys, which included rappers Juvenile, Turk, B.G., and a 15-year-old Lil Wayne.  It is still on, once Turk gets out of prison, where he was sent after pleading out to second-degree attempted murder for shooting a police officer, possessing a firearm while a felon, possessing a firearm while a fugitive from justice, and possessing a firearm while under the influence of a controlled substance.  He got 12 years in 2006.  He could be out as early as 2012.

Weezy himself might only need to serve 8 of his 12-month term, if he’s a good boy and the prisons remain woefully overcrowded.  The rapper, regardless, remains contemplative about serving time, telling Rolling Stone: “This is Lil Wayne going to jail.  Nobody can tell me what that’s like.  I just say I’m looking forward to it.”  Hopefully, it will be as pleasurable an experience as he is expecting.   Not everyone thinks of prison as a fine way to spend a few months.  Gotta love this guy.

There’s not much that hasn’t already been said about Lady Gaga’s fashion choices at last night’s 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.  It isn’t that we didn’t expect it, really.  She has chosen to look odd ever since getting attention for her album “The Fame”, changing hair colors and wearing bubbles and feathers and Things That Do Not Look Like Clothes.  But her music has certainly become popular.

I think it's the mace-like hand accessory that makes the outfit.

Admittedly, my own knowledge of the music of Lady Gaga is limited to Christopher Walken’s ingenious reading of “Poker Face” on BBC 1’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross last October.  Somehow, I was able to listen to that, while I have not yet been able to make it through even one full song of hers yet.  I’m working on it.

Last night’s performance with Elton John was, apparently, a mash-up of her own song “Speechless” and John’s classic “Your Song”.  It was very nice.  And a style match made in heaven.  If Elton John was a woman, he would probably dress like Lady Gaga.  Or he would have, like 20 years ago.  Maybe 30. 

Lady Gaga showed up at the Grammy Awards last night wearing yet another inexplicable dress, inexplicably designed just for her by Giorgio Armani.  It was sort of pink and glittery and very rigidly molded.  It had sort of Saturn-like rings all around it, also pink, and also glittery.  There was not a real hemline.  It was more like the bottom of a sculpture.  From the front, it revealed, well, pretty much everything.  Underneath the ‘dress’ was a bottom-of-the-platform-shoes to top-of-the-head (including hair!) bodysuit that looked as though it was encrusted with diamonds.  Fortunately, the bodysuit included bejeweled panties that covered up all of the Lady’s naughty bits.  Close-ups of Lady Gaga’s face reveal that she was not wearing a wig.  It was hair attached to a head-covering bodysuit.  It was almost medieval armor-ish.  Only with long, yellow, feathered hair attached. 

For her performance with Elton John, she changed into another glittery get-up, this time an aqua bodysuit with high-cut legs.  She was also sporting hot pink sequined triangles around her eyes.  From a distance, it looked like makeup.  But after she performed part of “Poker Face” and was ceremonially dumped into a machine marked “rejected”, she emerged covered in soot and her pink triangles were gone.  Seems like performing with Elton John would be the ideal time to don the famous pink triangle, but what do I know?  Anyway, the duet was lovely, with both of them playing piano and singing beautifully.  It was almost possible to look past the shoulders of Gaga’s bodysuit, which extended both vertically and horizontally, giving her an appearance of sequined, aquamarine wings folded at her sides.  And not in a good way.

It was when she took her seat that her red carpet gown and performance attire were both completely eclipsed, as was the view of everyone sitting behind her for at least 3 or 4 rows.  She wore what seemed to be the same bodysuit that was underneath her Armani creation, but wore a silver jacket with fiery, lightning bolt-like thingies sticking up from the shoulders and out from her elbows.  There was a hat to match.  That hat was probably what might be called ‘architectural’.  It sort of mirrored the lightning bolt motif, but was a bit more ‘Crown of the Ice Queen”.  And it was very, very tall.  Photos show a musician seated behind her looking up at it, probably wondering how he was going to see any of the show at all.  Gaga herself was watching the show through pink triangles again, but this time they were a bit more subdued.  They failed to glimmer quite the way her performance hot pink eye triangles did.

What can be said about Lady Gaga that hasn’t already been said?  Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to look past all of it and listen to her music.  People have likened Lady Gaga’s performance style to that of Freddie Mercury, but I disagree.  Lady Gaga is way gayer.

It’s bad enough that this year’s NFL All-Star Game is going to be played in Miami, rather than the traditional location in Hawaii.  Those boys deserve a nice trip to Hawaii after a long season of busting heads.  But this year, the Pro Bowl will be played the week before the Super Bowl.

I’m sorry.  What?

Yes, one week before the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints battle it out for the title and the biggest, gaudiest, most tasteless of high-quality commemorative diamond rings, the Best of the Best are supposed to play against each other.

See Peyton Manning Do THIS During the Pro Bowl This Year.

The Best of the Best.  Talking heads in the NFL have said that they are holding the Pro Bowl before the Championship game because playing it after seems “anti-climactic”.  If by ‘anti-climactic’, they mean that they believe in their hearts that viewers don’t want to see the best players on the field, then they are right.  But coaches Sean Payton of the Saints and Jim Caldwell of the Colts would have to have rocks in their heads to let any of their players risk injury one week before the Super Bowl.

There’s a reason that Major League Baseball holds their All-Star Game mid-season.  It doesn’t interfere with the World Series, which takes place three months later, and, even then, certain players sit out if they are thisclose to injury.  And the NFL knows this.  Playing the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl allows even players from the Championship team to be involved, if they want to.  And who doesn’t?

What’s the difference, really?

Well, the NFC starting quarterback, according to rosters released in the end of December, is four-time All-Star Drew Brees of the…(wait for it)…New Orleans Saints.  Yeah, he ain’t playing.  But at least he’s done it before.  Starting Guard Jahri Evans, a first-time All-Star, also from the Saints, won’t play because an injury in a game that counts for nothing would be totally stupid when he is to start in the biggest game of the season one week later.  His first time to be an All-Star, and he won’t play.  How PO’d do you think he is about this decision?  Linebacker Jonathan Vilma would have appeared for the second time, but, alas, he will not.  He will watch and fume from the sidelines.

That’s it, NFL.  Tick off a nice, big linebacker.

One team had six players selected for the Pro Bowl.  You guessed it: the Indianapolis Colts.  We won’t see Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Jeff Saturday, or Reggie Wayne.  Who else won’t we watch that day?  Dallas Clark and Peyton Manning.

Peyton Manning is not playing in the Pro Bowl.  Welcome to the world of Big, Stupid Decision by Failed Athletes in Front Offices.  Manning, Freeney, and Mathis were all to be starters.  Not that the AFC is short on talent, but the best players are supposed to play in an All-Star Game.  That’s where the name comes from.

So this year’s Pro Bowl will be a lovely forum in which to watch a great group of also-rans competing while members of the Saints and Colts breathe fire on the bench.  The very talent that helped their teams reach the Super Bowl is keeping them from playing in the Pro Bowl.

It is said that players from the Saints and Colts will be there for the first half of the game, but, again, they’d have to be crazy to risk getting injured with the biggest game of the year, often the most-watched sports event in the US, just one short week away.  And then there’s the addition burn of having it in Miami, the same city in which the Super Bowl is held.  “Kicking off an exciting Super Bowl week” the folks in the NFL offices say.

There are stupid decisions, and then there are STUPID decisions.  This one ranks in the second category.  If you underline it.  And then make it bold.  Then make the font larger.

I’ll watch the Super Bowl, but I’m boycotting the Pro Bowl on principle.  I mean, really.

Oh, Heidi, how many different ways you have found to remain in our minds, no matter how hard we try to block you out.  Your camera-hungry, desperate need for attention scored you a husband who requires an endlessly needy woman, and that’s working out beautifully, as we see from watching you argue with him when he puts a down payment on a house you don’t like, when he consults a doctor about a vasectomy when you want to have kids, when he flirts with a bartender because you had to work.

"Oh, Gee Whiz, Is There Really A Camera There?"

Heidi Montag set the bar nice and high for herself, doing one shady thing after another and dating the shadiest man alive, all the while claiming that she is a devout Christian.  On her Twitter page, her bio simply reads: “I love Jesus!”  And she honors him in odd ways.  But that’s just Heidi.  She married her sleazeball boyfriend Spencer Pratt while on vacation in Mexico, coming back with rings that cost less than the tequila it took to make the decision.  I guess they annulled that, because Spencer later took her to the top of a ferris wheel –when Heidi is deathly afraid of heights, no less—and offered her the largest of engagement rings that his cut of her money could buy. 

Her response was something like, “To this ring, I’ll say yes”.  This is paraphrasing.  The point is, the size of the diamond dictated her enthusiasm to get married.  Ain’t love grand? 

Then she made us all wish for earplugs and hysterical blindness when she performed live at the Miss Universe pageant, singing “Body Language” and sort-of dancing, in the way someone sings and dances when she is truly capable of doing neither.  She entertained the co-stars who hated her on “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” by singing “Twisted” a cappella.  The best part was seeing the looks on the other contestants’ faces.  The worst part was, well, her singing.

By this point she had already had a nose job and breast implants.   She went from being an annoying pretty girl to being an annoying blow-up doll in only 2 procedures.  Then she went to see the King of Sadistic Plastic Surgeons, who circled and marked “problem areas” on the stick-thin, clearly mentally-ill young girl.  She decided that she would have 10 procedures in one day, including a DDD breast enhancement; fat injections in her lips, naso-labial folds, and frown lines; botox in her forehead and around her eyes;  a mini-forehead lift; butt implants; liposuction around the hips and thighs; and ear-pinnings.  There’s more, but it’s hard to keep track. 

Prior to having all of the procedures, the little Christian girl from Colorado, “prayed about it for a long time and said, ‘God, if it’s wrong, then I won’t do it’”.  God, evidently, gave her the A-OK on her cosmetic surgeries, because she emerged looking like a figure in a wax museum.  This was really great for Heidi because she was not only starting to look like her husband’s fantasy woman, but because it got her the cover of People Magazine.  She proudly declared herself “Addicted to plastic surgery”, because that’s what it takes to get the cover of America’s most reputable news source. 

Oh, yeah, and she released an album called “Superficial”.  She claims that she is not referring to herself, however.  She also is not doing much singing.  Auto-tune got a workout during those sessions!  It includes a particularly catchy version of “Body Language featuring Spencer Pratt”, in which her husband raps.  Not kidding.  Heidi said that she and Spencer initially recorded it as a joke, but then it somehow magically managed to make it both on to her record and onto the stage at Miss Universe.  How did that happen?

Oh yeah, there was a chin reduction and fat injections to her cheeks as well.  Forgot those.

Now, Heidi also fancies herself a poet, writing a declaration of her love to her husband.  It is quite long, but here’s a taste of Heidi Barrett Browning in action:

“But 2010 is the start of a new life
Like I said there will be no strife
All that matters is the time we get to spend
That’s all that matters when it comes to the end
Mrs. Pratt is coming out to stay
Never will I go back to my old other ways
It’s a new beginning and era of love
We will be flying so high like the dove…”

You get the point.

She has said that she is “competing against the Britney Spears’ of the world”.  Although that really isn’t much to aim for, she still doesn’t quite attain it, despite her assertions that “Superficial” could be the biggest album of the year and will rival Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

If I didn’t know better, I’d expect Spencer had a hand up the back of her dress and was making her talk as his marionette.