Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Sunny Oglesby has figured something you don’t learn in school: dating someone who is famous for being engaged to someone who is related to someone famous makes you famous.  Since she is now in a relationship with the ex-boyfriend of the daughter of Sarah Palin, she is among the most searched topics on the internet.  The news broke the way all young couples release such information now: they each changed their Facebook status to “in a relationship with” and linked to each other.  And now everyone wants to know everything there is to know about this elusive creature with the whimsical name.

Sunny Oglesby knows a relationship isn't real until you post it on Facebook.

What we do know is that Oglesby works in day-care and teaches pre-school in Wasilla, but hails from Oregon.  She lists her interests as hunting, fishing, and camping.  With her choice of career working with children, she should have a particular affinity communicating with Levi, who probably knows almost all the same words as Sunny’s students, and maybe half of the math and history.  She will, no doubt, be instrumental should he continue in his bid to become mayor of Wasilla.  She can have her class make his posters and write his speeches!

Bristol Palin told E! News that she is happy about Levi’s new relationship because Sunny is encouraging him to spend more time with his son.  Evidently, Sunny is very excited to meet little Tripp.  With Levi’s history, it’s only a matter of time before Sunny is in Bristol’s mukluks, carrying around another little Johnston.  And if he’s running for mayor, he’s gonna have to make an honest woman of that little girl and give her an engagement ring.  And it’s clear from the “About Me” section of her Facebook page that she is the mature, stable kind of woman that Levi needs.  “I’v (sic) made a lot of mistakes and learned from them..” She writes. “Had a lot of loser ex boyfriends and friends that just made me stronger and better..Stay out of drama as much as I possibly can but it finds me haha.”

Both Levi and Sunny have posted pictures of themselves doing things that couples do: snuggling, holding hands, kissing in front of a disembodied moose head mounted on the wall.  Their Facebook pages impart the story of their growing love.  With the holidays coming, they can look forward to watching Buddy the Elf (one of her favorite movies) as they cuddle together and plan on stretching out their 15 minutes of fame.  Sunny is new to the game, but there are already rumors that they are shopping around a reality show called Loving Levi.  Johnston already has a tentative deal for a reality show following his campaign for mayor, so Oglesby may get her shot at being his co-star.

So far, dating Levi Johnston has led to great success on the reality TV circuit.  Good luck, kiddo.

Ever since Prince William finally, after what feels like decades of headlines, slipped that pretty engagement ring on Kate Middleton’s finger, the tabloids spent about ten minutes talking about the dress she wore for the announcement and the dress she might wear for the wedding.  Then they started talking about Harry because, heir to the throne or not, he’s the one we’d all rather be looking at.  He’s the one who creates controversy and he’s the one who goes off to Africa to start a charity and continues to see it through.  And somehow, he does it all while looking just as cute as a roomful of fluffy kittens cuddling flopsy-eared bunnies.  Now he’s trying to master to bob-and-weave regarding questions about when he might someday get married.  We can only talk about Wills for so long.

"You want to do WHAT?"

While the Queen busies herself with formal parties and fireworks and all those things befitting someone of Prince William’s political stature, Prince Harry is doing things in his own gingey way.  The Queen, for example, is planning a staid engagement party that will involve heads of state, formal gowns, bowing, and kissing of rings and behinds.  Meanwhile, Harry is working on a bash that will involve performances by Snoop Dogg and British rapper Tinie Tempah.  The boys already met Tinie at the Wireless Festival and asked him to perform for them, and Harry plans to approach Snoop when the rapper and his entourage arrive in London next week.  Oh, to be in on that little get-together.  We can only hope that Harry remembers to ask in between “pass me those Cheetos, willya?” and “puff, puff, give!”  If we can rely on any of the royals to throw a good party, it will be the ginger-haired man-boy with the devilish grin.

As news of the engagement broke, Prince Harry got some good news of his own: he may get his chance to return to Afghanistan.  He didn’t want to leave the service, but he was pulled from fighting with the Household Cavalry because not only his title, but also his famous red hair, made him an easy target.  Since then he has been in training with the Army Air Corps to be an Apache Helicopter pilot, and he’s anxious to get up in the air. “At the end of the day you train for war,” he told reporters.  “It’s as simple as that.  If we could be at peace, then fantastic, but if we’re at war then you want to be with your brothers in arms.”  He plans to serve for as long as his military career and political obligations allow it, and has attended a number of services for soldiers killed in battle—including one for a close friend of his—over the past month.  How do you not love this sweet gingey boy?

Of course, this also comes on the heels of a series of articles listing the world’s most eligible royal bachelorettes.    When does that reality show start?  Evidently, he split from Chelsy Davy yet again over the summer, making him impressively hot single ginge planning some great parties.

I hope my invitation doesn’t get lost in the mail.

But we still don’t like him.

And the world begins a game of “Where’s Eduardo?”  Eduardo Saverin originally bankrolled Facebook with $1000, when it was still being run from a Harvard dorm room.  Later, everyone’s favorite megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg just decided to removed Saverin from the company.  A lawsuit resulted in Saverin receiving 5% of the company, worth about a billion dollars now.  Zuckerberg fumed.  It is said that Saverin was the primary source of information for the book “The Accidental Billionaire”, on which the movie The Social Network was based, but, wherever he is, he’s not talking.  That was, evidently, part of the settlement.  Whether it’s his Brazilian-ness or his billions, searches for him online shot up about 600% after the movie was released Friday.  As the only marginally good-looking co-founder of Facebook, he is suddenly more popular than Brad Pitt and chicks are lining up to get a suitably-sized engagement ring from the elusive chess-playing recluse–if they can find him.  Even Mark Zuckerberg, who was portrayed in the film as just-this-side-of Darth Vader on the cruelty scale, has become a hot ticket.

One of these brought "SexyBack". The other, not so much.

Zuckerberg has been portrayed as greedy, rude, and dishonest.  He is said to think of himself as a hacker, and, at one point, was rumored to use Facebook to read personal information and emails of anyone using the site.  In an effort to repair public opinion of him, he appeared as himself on an episode of The Simpsons.  He also donated $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey school system, although he claims that it has nothing to do with the movie.  He says he had been planning to become a philanthropist all along, but the timing of his gift came at the same time that press for the movie increased.  After all of the lawsuits filed against him by former business associates, it seems somehow unlikely that his desire to make the world a better place came from the heart.

Perhaps the most perplexing of all casting was Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker.  Not because Timberlake is a bad actor; he is, in fact, quite good.  But Sean Parker, who was forced to leave Facebook after being arrested for cocaine possession, is not exactly what anyone would call “good looking”.  Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, is. Timberlake portrayed a cocaine-addicted backstabber who was instrumental in ousting Eduardo Saverin from Facebook, Inc., and some talk shows and entertainment reporters have even mentioned him as a possibility for an Oscar nomination.  Although the depiction of Parker was so negative, it is said that he was very pleased with the choice of Timberlake to play him.  Who wouldn’t be?  A borderline-average-looking uber-geek gets to have a hot superstar pretending to be him.  How lucky for Sean Parker that Hollywood wanted at least one big name to be associated with the film.

But people would have gone to see the movie anyway.  And then they would have quickly changed their Facebook status updates to read: “Saw ‘Social Network’.  Justin Timberlake is so hot!”

Negative depictions or not, these nerdy guys are now household names, and will undoubtedly begin dating models and actresses.  So it goes.  Still haven’t seen the movie.  Maybe I’ll illegally download it.

God help us all.

Yet another news day has come upon us and, as we optimistically look for something worth reading, we instead find that Americans are still expecting miracles, Iran is still run by a lunatic, and there is still no peace in the Middle East.  Those stories—newsworthy or not—are buried underneath layers of Ashton stepping out on Demi, Lindsay Lohan soing drugs, and Bristol Palin doing things that don’t make sense.  But it’s mostly Bristol.  Now that she seems to have put the whole ‘Levi Johnston engagement ring’ business behind her, she is branching out.  Now, following in the sensible shoe-prints of her mother, she has started her own Facebook page.  She told the Associated Press that she is doing this to step out of her comfort zone and begin talking about her “pro-life and pro-family” views.

Mostly, however, she has used her new page as a way to talk about her performances on Dancing with the Stars.  She must have made Mama Palin so proud when she first appeared on the show.  She wore a conservative suit and her hair in a bun, looking as much like her mom as possible.  Then, to the booming beats of the family classic “Mama Told Me Not to Come”, she threw off her Velcro-ed-on conservative garb to reveal a fire engine red, fringed minidress that clearly showed her commitment to conservative values.  She shimmied and shook those solid family values all over the stage.  After agreeing to appear on the show, the 19 year-old vowed to be covered up in a respectable way in direct contrast to the usual dance apparel worn by contestants.  Of course, respectable means different things to different people.  She was definitely wearing more than she was when she got knocked up at 17, so that’s a step in the right direction.  The only logical way to convey her views on abstinence was to end her performance with dance partner Mark Ballas’s hand on her behind.  Whatever.  It got great media coverage, and we know how the Palin clan likes that.

Since Sarah Palin likes to meet all the guys who grab her daughter’s tush, young Bristol brought Mark Ballas to Alaska to meet the family.  How proud they must all have been to meet the next young man to help sully the Palin name.  He could be well on the way to fathering the next grandchild, after all.  The 24 year-old has been studying dance and music for most of his life, and Sarah must have been ecstatic to learn that he was in a musical group called 2B1G (2 boys, 1 girl).  He has all of the qualities that a Republican White House hopeful looks for in a son-in-law.  Palin tweeted her enthusiasm for her daughter’s first performance on DWTS, and plans to be in the audience in the future.  All the better to keep an eye on her daughter from there.

So you can check out Bristol Palin’s Facebook page to see all the photos of her with Mark caressing her butt, and to read her self-written pro-life, family values rhetoric.

Any guesses as to which will make more become fans of her page?

For starters, Katy Perry was an odd choice as a celebrity guest on the wholesome children’s program Sesame Street.  She is known for her revealing, strange style of dress and has graced more worst-dressed lists than Paris Hilton.  Anything attention-getting is right up her alley, including her often-blue hair.  Although she filmed an episode of Sesame Street looking more wholesome than she ever has, enough parents complained to PBS that her dress was too revealing and her appearance on the show was pulled.  Perhaps her history of odd behavior played into the decision.  She is, after all, the woman who ecstatically accepted an engagement ring from the oddly-shorn, unclean-looking Russell Brand.  The couple took to Twitter to express their reactions.  Perry tweeted that it, “looks like my play date with Elmo has been cut short” and urged fans to view the skit on her website.  Brand reacted by tweeting, “Today’s Sesame Street will NOT be brought to you by the number 34 or the letter D”.  Classy.

Katy Perry: In case you haven't seen them yet.

The have been other sex-kitten types on the show, with appearances by Cher, Beyonce, Kim Cattrall, and even Jessica Alba to describe the word “scrumptious”.  Parents didn’t ask PBS to pull those appearances.  There have also been skits from actors and musicians who are no strangers to controversy.  Sopranos actor James Gandolfini, rapper Ice-T, and marijuana aficionado Cheech Marin have been on the show, although Chris Brown’s appearance was cancelled after his girlfriend-beating incident.  Sesame Street has not shied away from featuring openly gay actors, with skits including Neil Patrick Harris subtly acting as the “Fairy Shoe Person” and Nathan Lane performing in all his glory.  The show has had as many stars as Saturday Night Live, including athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, models, and activists.  No public outcry has matched this one.  It is because Sesame Street is getting racy, because parents are getting more conservative, or because YouTube made footage viewable in time for people to object?  Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

But it seems that Katy Perry’s reputation preceded her, and parents weren’t having it.  Executive Producer Carol-Lynne Parente defended their decision to have Perry on the show and felt that the skit was far from too racy for young viewers, but revealed that the show relented when so many adults objected to the YouTube-leaked portion.  She cited the importance of Sesame Street’s relationship to its viewers and the opinions of parents.  Although the controversy may seem silly, any show that relies on public donations needs to tread lightly.  There might have been uproars over previous celebrities appearing on the show, but since many of them were prior to the “YouTube” age, any criticism would have come only after the shows aired.  Who knows if Cheech’s episode was aired more than once?

So Katy Perry’s D-cups will never air on Sesame Street. It’s okay.  You can view them clearly in every other picture of her ever taken.

It’s all about social media these days.  What began as a way to connect to people has turned into big business.  Now companies have pages on Facebook, MySpace, and a few other sites like Friendster that may or may not exist anymore.  Bands create pages to make their music even more accessible to the masses.  A person can get discounts on items if they become fans of particular Facebook pages.  We text instead of talking, we find mates on websites, and we buy things without leaving the house.  Because of “social media”, everything is popularized and made available online.  We can get updates from our favorite authors, musicians, and celebrities daily.  Do I expect to get a personal message from Chuck Liddell by becoming his Facebook friend?  Well, no.  But a person can buy everything from books to computers to diamonds and engagement rings—often at dramatically reduced prices—by becoming “friends” with companies.  Where MySpace has been eclipsed by Facebook, so is Facebook quickly playing second fiddle to Twitter.  But suddenly we find ourselves being virtually assaulted and given viruses via the internet.

Big Brother in 140 characters or less.

And it makes headlines, especially when a gaping hole in security is found by a 17 year-old Australian kid who just wanted to see if he could do it.  The precocious Pearce Delphin decided to send out a bit of JavaScript code that would cause a pop-up ad to appear when someone moused over it.  “I did it merely to see if it could be done,” he told AFP via email (of course), “that JavaScript really could be executed within a tweet”.  Well, not only did it work, but hackers found it brilliant and used it to send millions of people to various websites, including Japanese porn sites.  It also was used to create something called “worm tweets” that replicated every time they were read.  Twitter was suddenly overwhelmed with random redirection and endless tweets from other accounts.  The glitch wasn’t only used for pranks and porn.  More malicious hackers were able to create code that allowed them access to Twitter users’ personal information.

And suddenly we all feel a little more vulnerable, afraid that everything from our real birth years to credit card and banking information is being accessed by cyber-creeps.  And those of us who still rock it old-school and prefer talking on the phone to texting are still left exposed to attack because we wanted to be among the first to know when Soundgarden released their tour dates.

The one thing that kept us mildly protected was Twitter’s allowed tweet length.  According to the mischievous teenager, “The problem was being able to write the code that can steal usernames and passwords while still remaining under Twitter’s 140-character tweet limit”.  Given enough time, hackers could certainly figure it out.  Twitter, however, jumped on the problem and had the bug fixed within five hours, but not before even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs found his account bombarded with unwanted code.  While Delphin didn’t do anything that is technically (pun intended) illegal, he did prove that no system is foolproof.

It certainly isn’t causing very many people to panic and close their accounts to Twitter, Facebook, or any other of our favorite social media, but it does kinda make you think, no?

I’m going to call my mom.  On the phone.  Using a landline.  But while we’re talking, I’ll be checking to see what my friends overseas are up to without leaving the comfort of my own home.  I, like everyone else, can’t go back to what life was like before AOL got me hooked.

Of course there’s nothing quite like a celebrity wedding.  Other celebrities attend, there’s lots of media coverage, the engagement rings make every magazine and website to showcase their sheer hugeness, and so on.  And, let’s be honest, there are more televised weddings than ever before.  Understandable when it was Prince Charles and Princess Di; it was significant, and it was on news channels.  But now everyone’s gotta go and make a reality show out of their weddings.  Why?  None of the people whose weddings people will tune in to watch need the money.  When Bethenny Frankel signed on for Bethenny’s Getting Married, Tori Spelling had hers, and now, tragically, Carmelo Anthony and La La Vasquez have premiered their show La La’s Full Court Wedding.  Evidently, the more-than $14.4 million dollars Anthony will earn this year doesn’t cover the expense of a fantasy wedding.  Or, perhaps, La La was a bit bummed that her star has been steadily fading since she stopped being an MTV VJ.

The happy couple, ready for their close-up.

But oh, Carmelo, why could you not just be content with the fame you have reached by being an outstanding small forward?  Were you just playing along so your new bride could show the world how important she still is?  In interviews, it is La La who does most of the talking, telling us about hanging out with Ciara, Kelly Rowland, and Tyrese Gibson prior to the wedding.  She goes on to explain that we should celebrate the already 7-year relationship that the couple has shared, and the 3 year-old son that took part in the nuptials.  She laments the difficulty in planning such a large-scale affair, although she had—as all people with money to burn do—a full-time wedding planner.

And then the reason for the show becomes quite a bit clearer.  It seems that Vasquez is trying to jump start an acting career.  She is already co-starring in The Gun with 50 Cent and Val Kilmer, and is producing a few reality shows with Russell Simmons.  But she’s got her eye on some new fame of her own.  After all, most people watch Lakers games to see what actors and musicians are in the crowd.  Should the Denver Nuggets not have the same privilege?

Not only did the normal celebrity-related media cover the wedding, but ESPN also had some representatives.  After all, there were a number of famous athletes there, like LeBron James, Lamar Odom, Amare Stoudemire, and, of course, Kim Kardashian.

Irritated into submission after the last few months, Reggie Bush decided to give back his Heisman Trophy.  Evidently, the NCAA decided that 5 years later is as good a time as any to punish a guy who worked his tail off to become one of the greatest running backs that USC ever had.  And, of course, any 20 year-old kid should know better than to accept money to buy his loving family a beautiful home, right?  Certainly, most boys that age would be wary of anyone offering cash, since every athlete has a full working knowledge of NCAA guidelines that may or may not affect them in the future.  Right?  Would it not make more sense to simply punish USC and the sports agent who admitted to giving almost $300,000 in gifts to Bush?  Well, they did that, but not before the agent, Lloyd Lake, decided to sue the now-millionaire for repayment while agreeing to cooperate with NCAA in a frantic effort to save his own tail.

"Okay, now can we talk about, you know, football?"

In July, incoming USC president Max Nikias said that all murals and jerseys the school has been displaying in Bush’s honor would be taken down, and that the school would also return their copy of the trophy as well.  Although Bush has not specifically admitted to any wrongdoing, he agreed to return the trophy so he can get on with his career, saying that, “The persistent media speculation regarding allegations dating back to my years at USC has been both painful and distracting”.  He also stated that he would spend the rest of his career proving that he was, despite everything, worthy of the award that was granted to him in a landslide vote over Vince Young.  Young even posted on Twitter that, “Reg will continue to be the 2005 award recipient and I will continue to be honored to have been on the 2005 Heisman campaign with such a talented athlete”.   The question has never been about Reggie Bush’s talent or whether or not he deserved the Heisman that year.  It is about compliance with NCAA rules.  It’s a dangerous can of worms to open, however, since college athletes have had lavish gifts handed to them for as long as there has been competition to keep them playing and happy.  1972 winner Johnny Rodgers noted that OJ Simpson got to keep his trophy.  But, since the NCAA does not specifically say that murder is against their policies, they never threatened to sanction him or the school for which he played.

Reggie Bush would probably gladly go back to the time when the media focused on him because he was expected to give Kim Kardashian an engagement ring, which she would not have to return under any circumstances.  Eventually, maybe he will get some press for being one of the greatest running backs the New Orleans Saints have ever had.  It would be nice to see him getting attention for something good and, yes, newsworthy.

This all comes in the same year that Congress is using a similar time machine to go after former Major League pitcher Roger Clemens, who they are claiming lied in congressional hearing regarding use of performance-enhancing drugs.  Will Clemens have to return any of his five Cy Young awards?  Congress, like the NCAA, should try to stay in the present and deal with things that are happening now.

Like that will ever happen.

Do I not speak for most Americans when I say that it is a crying shame that those kids on Jersey Shore make millions for drinking and practicing flagrant promiscuity?  Not only has the Governor of New Jersey said that the show is bad for the image of his state, but after polling voters, Maurice Carroll of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said this: “New Jerseyans to New York: Keep your low-lifes at home and away from our seashore”.  For those of you not as familiar with the difference in the accents of the region, it has been painfully obvious from the beginning of the series that most of the cast is, in fact, from New York.  Not that New Yorkers are generally as vile as “The Situation”, but declaring that those kids are all from New Jersey is just wrong. It is, in particular, bad PR when various members of the cast spend varying amounts of time in drunk tanks and/or court.

Snooki: Annoying even long-distance.

And so we get to talk, once again, about pocket-sized Snooki, whose habits including drinking twice her body weight in alcohol and exposing her underthings to cameras.  In July, she was arrested in the middle of the day for public drunkenness and swearing like a sailor at random people on the beach.  When the police hauled her off, she was wearing $300 sunglasses and a t-shirt with the word “SLUT” emblazoned across her chest.  A Municipal Court judge accepted her guilty plea on the charge of disturbing the peace.  For whatever reason, he dropped the accompanying charges of disorderly conduct and annoyance with the stipulation that she pay a $500 fine.  Those charges would have carried with them jail time.  After the trial, she declared that she was “too pretty to be in jail”.  Oddly enough, weighing in on the case was Senator John McCain, who agreed with Snooki’s assertion.

Despite Snooki’s troubles, boyfriend Jeff Miranda posed shirtless on whatever Steppin’ Out magazine is to propose marriage to his tiny girlfriend of two weeks.  Responding in that dignified way that celebrities seem to, Snooki took to Twitter to announce to the world that she would not be accepting an engagement ring from the Iraq war veteran, writing, “I’m single and I’m not going to get married!”  It is an odd twist of events, considering that she has been looking for a boyfriend under every barstool in Seaside Heights, but perhaps she’s holding out for something better.  It’s your move, John McCain!

We can all rest assured that the upcoming season of Jersey Shore will maintain the same level of class and modesty as previous seasons.  To ensure that the cast would be well-supplied—and protected—for the remainder of their filming schedule, Moishe’s Mobile Storage delivered some necessities to their summer home.  Included in the shipment were free gym memberships, sunless tanner, cases of vodka, and plenty of condoms.  Rami Haim, president of Moishe’s, explained that the company, “felt obliged to pull together and deliver everything they could possibly need to make it to the end of summer”.

Now, that’s annoying.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary to which we all refer when we need to know the definition of real English words, has just released to the world the top-searched words on its website.  How proud all of us American-born folks feel to know that the official “Word of the Summer” isn’t a real word at all.  It is a Palin-ism.  Yes, our favorite bear-shootin’, gun-totin’, language-mangling former Vice Presidential candidate invented a word, using it not just on television but on Twitter as well.  Americans immediately took to the internet as they shook their heads and said “What?”  It has to be a real word, right?  People don’t just make things up or make giant, glaring errors in speech when they were thisclose to the Oval Office, right?

"I used a sharpie to write it here, so it IS real."

Wrong.  Sarah Palin said and typed “refudiate” just as though it means something.  But at this point, as our Ambassador of Embarrassment, she shrugged off criticism, noting that William Shakespeare created new language all the time.  Which is funnier: Sarah Palin flagrantly abusing her mother tongue or Sarah Palin comparing herself to Shakespeare?  The jury’s still out on that.

Merriam-Webster stands firm on not having this freshly-coined term in our official lexicon, at least not yet.  The same debate was raised when folks wanted to have “bootylicious” become part of our collective vocabulary.  A big shout-out goes to M-W.com on that decision as well.

Perhaps Sarah Palin is just giving up on trying to make sense.  Her family has become yet another reason for the rest of the world to think Americans are stupid.  But “refudiate-gate” has served a purpose for the Alaskan clan: it has taken some of the focus off of the “Bristol Palin unwed teenaged mother” thing, and away from every sidelong glance to see if Bristol is or isn’t wearing her engagement ring from on-again, off-again fiancé/nude model Levi Johnston.

We might give Sarah Palin the benefit of the doubt and say that she threw herself in front of the bus, so to speak, to give Bristol a bit of breathing room.  But that would require a few things that Mrs. P. just doesn’t have, like media savvy and intelligence.  And it would be a pointless effort anyway, as young Bristol is participating on Dancing with the Stars with the condition that she be able to wear modest dresses.  So far, teaser photos for the show have revealed that her interpretation of modesty is similar to her interpretation of abstinence.

Merriam-Webster has stated that the process of a slang term or word-hybrid (think ‘bodacious’ and ‘guesstimate’) becoming official is a long process and would require, among other provisions, common usage.  The “common usage” exception is a back door into accepted language, and one that can cause hilarity if you type in an entertaining word to hear it read to you online.  M-W.com is good like that.  But don’t expect to hear a well-enunciated “refudiate” any time soon on the respected site.  If it ever does make it into the dictionary, I’m giving up citizenship.

Who’s with me?