Miley Cyrus lookin' trashy

Alright, while this photo of Miley Cyrus isn't trashy in the least bit I do think that she is showing a bit too much side boob and that her latest attempt at reinventing her image is the perfect example of trying too hard.





If you want a great example of the former Disney star trying too hard, check out the video for her latest single, 'We Can't Stop'

Topanga Takes It Off for Maxim photoshoot

Former child star Danielle Fishel, who became famous as "Topanga" in the '90s ABC sitcom Boy Meets World and will reprise the role for the upcoming ABC Family spin-off Girl Meets World, exposes her bombshell side on the cover of Maxim's April issue.

Fishel, 31, is shown wearing an open cardigan sweater -- and almost nothing underneath -- while clutching an old-school telephone. In a photo spread inside the issue, the actress vacuums the floor in a state of undress.

Ellie Goulding bares her head-lights in sheer white dress

Ellie Goulding wore next to nothing on the red carpet at the Les Misérables premiere in London on Wednesday Dec. 5. It appeared as though Ellie didn’t want A-list stars Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried to get all of the attention!

The “Lights” singer seemed unfazed by the bitter cold weather, however, there was one telling sign (or two) that the air was frigid.

Ellie made sure to show off all angles, exposing her boobs, nipples and underwear.

Jennifer Lawrence - shear dress

 

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence, shown above, looks 100% stunning in a form-fitting grey dress as she makes an appearance on a talk show. Upon further inspection, though, I did notice that her nipples are at least somewhat visible through the mildly shear fabric on the upper portion of this classy dress.

Kim Kardashian camel toe

I am not a fan of the Kardashian clan but I will say that Kim Kardashian has a smoking hot body. Factor in Kim Kardashian's display of camel toe in this photo and you have a winning combination. Why, though, is camel toe in some celebrities so easy to spot? I suspect it's a two-fold problem. The first being that they are obviously wearing pants which are far too tight in the crotchal region. The second contributing factor to celebrity camel toe is, and this is only a hypothesis, that the region in question has... oh, hell, I'm not even going to say it because it would be too vulgar even for this website.

Without further ado, here is the promised Kim Kardashian camel toe picture.

Kim Kardashian showing off her sexy curves, cleavage and a bit of camel toe.

Patricia Heaton's Sandra Fluke apology means nothing

How little does Patricia Heaton matter in the world of celebrities? It took until noon today, after the aging former co-star of "Everyone Loves Raymond" spouted off over the weekend about college student Sandra Fluke testifying about insurance companies needing to cover birth control for students, for me to even hear about the aging has-been opening her stupid mouth.

I agree with the testimony of Sandra Fluke, insurance companies would be wise to cover birth control options for both women and men (yeah, that means vasectomies, guys). There are plenty of insurance companies who do not provide that coverage -- sometimes costing as little as ten dollars per month -- for women. And the women seeking it out are more often than not in relationships and are obviously capable of making smart decisions. The world doesn't need tens of thousands of unplanned pregnancies which tend to result in births which just so happen to be covered by insurance companies and cost them well over $10,000. Simple math says that any smart insurance company could afford to provide a few hundred months of birth control for women before they equal the cost of covering one birth.

It's easy for someone as disconnected from reality as Patricia Heaton, living on royalties from the 90s sitcom she was a part of, to rattle off a few poor attempts at jokes at the expense of Sandra Fluke who was brave enough and believed in her convictions enough to go out in public and testify before congress about her beliefs -- a belief that insurance companies who just so happen to cover the cost of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, allowing older guys to sport more wood than a lumberyard and harrass their aging wives for some sexing; should actually cover a medicine that improves the lives of women. And yes, I know all about the condom option but I'm sure there are plenty of women who, just like guys, don't want to deal with the perceived hassle and would rather take the responsibility of safe sex in their own hands.

Maybe Patricia Heaton has begun to learn that she isn't going to see eye to eye with others on the topic of birth control. Maybe Patricia Heaton just heard about the idiotic and intentional controversy stirred up by Viagra abuser Rush Limbaugh and decided to pile on. Or maybe Patricia Heaton is just an ignorant D-list Hollywood celebrity nearing the end of her viability who just wants to keep her name in the pages of the media.

Who is Khloe Kardashian's daddy?

I hate the Kardashians. They are annoying. Their voices and mannerisms grind on my every nerve. They are the picture of everything that is wrong with television in AMerica. However, they are also stupid famous because of being on TV. It's a vicious circle. But because of their fame, they also find themselves thrown into scandals. I like scandals because a good scandal is better than anything that can be dreamed up by a "reality" television producer.

Unfortunately, the scandal surrounding the supposed doubt about just who Khloe Kardashian's daddy is has me bored. Yeah, she's totally amazonian compared to her two smaller and annoying sisters featured on the endless string of shows on E! entertainment television. But she's really not much taller than her mother. You can't judge their heredity based on looks because, hell, they are the privileged few living in Beverly Hills or whatever exclusive suburb of Los Angeles and I highly doubt that there's anyone in that family who hasn't had some sort of plastic surgery done. It's painfully obvious that their step-dad, Bruce Jenner, had his done in the back of a windowless pedophile van.

So maybe Khloe has had her lips plumped with some ass far. Maybe her two prominent sisters have had their noses slimmed and re-shaped. Or maybe, and this is a big stretch, she just looks different from her siblings. I've seen how different people in large families can look and it's questionable if they all shared the same dad. So while a good scandal is interesting, this one pertaining to who Khloe Kardashian's real father is has no legs. Khloe Kardashian's father is -- wait for it -- most likely who she has always believed her father was, Robert Kardashian. But until the E! television channel vanishes as a whole our sad little country will be plagued with garbage about the paternity of celebrities.

Amy Winehouse: the ticking time bomb

When I heard via a friend's smart phone late Saturday evening that Amy Winehouse had been found dead, I made some off-color remark about her death. You'd have to be an idiot if you didn't see her death coming from a mile away. Hell, I'm surprised that she held on this long. I had her in my death pool as far back as 2008.

But nobody at 27 years old deserves to die. It's sad to think that she peaked years earlier after winning a couple of Grammys for "Rehab" which was both catchy and an ode to her defiant, booze- and drug-fueled lifestyle. She had a ton of potential as an artist. Unfortunately she was surrounded with enablers.



To see that former druggie Russell Brand referred to Amy Winehouse as a "Fucking genius" may very well be true. It's just that, outside of her Grammy-winning "Rehab", we never saw that genius. Instead, we were treated to photos of her looking like death's sick cousin. Winehouse was often photographed wearing lingerie in public -- looking like she had no idea where she even was. She sported a tattoo in script that read "Blake" which was like a love note for her on-again off-again boyfriend Blake Fielder Civil. Sadly, their love of drugs was far stronger than their love for each other but when you're both fucked out of your minds on heroin you only care about your next fix and surpassing the high of the last one. Hell, it was pretty obvious that drugs were what kept them together and tore them apart and it is a decent guess that she died of a heroin overdose. I'll be shocked if the cause of death is something else.

It seems to me that, at least in part, Amy Winehouse didn't want to be helped. Maybe she was one of those types that felt that the heroin brought her creativity. Maybe Winehouse felt that the world would be better without her -- a sort of inferiority complex. Maybe she simply liked to tempt fate as reckless rock stars sometimes do. Whatever the case, she joined the 27 club this weekend along with the likes of Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

As one writer put it this weekend, "Why couldn't it have been Pete Doherty who died instead?"

The British have a sense of humor about Kate Middleton

What happens when someone finds a piece of food which resembles the image of someone famous? They sell it of course. But 500 British pounds (about $13,500 U.S. dollars - just try and doubt my math) doesn't sound like an exorbitant amount for a jelly bean whose mottled coloring resembles the likeness of the future princess of England, Kate Middleton. Sure, it doesn't feature her bust (which would definitely increase the asking price because everyone loves breasts) but the best part about the fluff piece of journalism, which The Independent recognized as such, is the URL which the assigned the article... utter-PR-fiction-but-people-love-this-shit-so-fuck-it-lets-just-print-it-2269573

That's seriously what the URL is. Click thru and see for yourself or just stay here and look at the jelly bean image of Kate Middleton who, according to some supermarket tabloids I saw on Saturday is pregnant. That announcement will supposedly come after the wedding.

Do people really care about THIS royal wedding?

In case you're still obsessed, some thirty years later, about the modern day royal wedding happening a mere month away, worry not. Americans can obsess over the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton with 20 hours of combined coverage spread over NBC, MSNBC, E! and a few other cable nets nobody really gives a damn about.

The real question, though, is whether people do actually care about this royal wedding? The previous royal wedding was big news because it was the first of its kind due to it being televised and the soon-to-be Princess Diana being a virtual nobody and coming from nothing. She used her fame, though, for good and made a lasting legacy with her charity work.

The whole Kate Middleton thing seems different. Oh, sure, she's easy on the eyes but she's already at least somewhat famous and seems to be just a lesser version of our American fame whores -- the difference being that she has an accent which makes being a fame whore a bit classier.

I can wish until I'm blue in the face but I already know that people will obsess over  the Prince William/Kate Middleton nuptials just like any other wedding but do we need it to be televised? Hasn't Prince Charles done enough to sully the mystique of the British royal family to the point that we don't/shouldn't care any longer? Maybe we've finally moved on because we sure seem to be able to obsess plenty over stateside nobodies like Lindsay Lohan and her drug addiction/shoplifting habit and Charlie Sheen generally being a walking corpse who survives on a constant flow of porn star sex and cocaine.

The phenomenon of reality television

I wouldn't normally ever consider watching 20/20. It's not because I'm too cool to watch a network news magazine show. It's not even that I'm out of the house on a Friday night (because I'm basically an elderly shut-in). It's just that afSavedter enduring Friday nights where the only option was 20/20 growing up, I have a dislike for the program -- much like my wife's dislike of pancakes.

But this Friday's episode of 20/20 (9 PM Central on KSTP-Channel 5/ABC) just may be intriguing enough to consider watching. It's all about the phenomenon of reality television. According to the ABC Press Release, they'll be taking a look at the thing that most maddens me -- people who are famous for no other reason than being famous. The people like Richard Hatch (Survivor), Kate Gosselin, The Kardashians and others. Also featured will be the perfectly nauseating ladies from Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise. Having never watched it but heard discussions about it, they are all a bunch of spoiled, bitchy, possibly whorish housewives who drink a lot and live overly privileged lives.

In short, they fit the bill for being famous for no other reason than being famous. And their fame is only due to Bravo (and other cable channels) rolling out original but (supposedly) unscripted series featuring the supposedly average lives of nobodies. Basically, we have the cable channels to blame for a whole new breed of fame -- those who have done nothing, outside of living their mundane lives, to become famous.

Let's all blame cable and get back to watching these worthless, vapid souls being exposed on ABC's 20/20.

An introduction to something new

Earlier this week I hinted at something new in this space. This blog have been in a near-constant state of evolution and if you’ve followed me at all in the past few years you’ll know that I am an experimenter. I’ve toyed around with a couple twists on photo blogs (one featuring my own work and another aggregating the work of others), I have another blog featuring the most ridiculous Star Tribune comments from their website, another where I share my own video playlist (another twist on aggregation). Some of my projects gain traction while others simply fail fast and are cast aside.

But this place has been around since late in 2003. That’s about three generations in internet time. I’ve gone from a diary of sorts to rambling political commentary to a focus on happenings in Minnesota to general interest sort of stuff. It’s a constantly evolving space that seems to change with my interests.

But now things are changing again. As I made a somewhat veiled post earlier this week (typing any amount of text on an iPod’s touch screen is a test of one’s patience) I considered a number of ideas but then it dawned on me -- why do something gimmicky when I could take a semi-dormant project and revive it. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or get bored again and fall back into a regularly updated series of general interest content but why not get back to some of the most fun stuff I’ve ever written for another website -- “Talkin’ ‘bout TV”

As I think back and look at the archives here, I don have some sort of sick interest in pop culture. I also watch a shit-ton of TV but quickly weed out the garbage. I feel that everyone (or every program in this case) deserves at least a first look. I’ve never played favorites (hell, I actually enjoyed the first couple seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”) but I do get hooked on a few shows and find those to be appointment television. But why stop at TV? I also pay at least somewhat close attention to our nation’s ridiculous obsession with pop culture and am genuinely intrigued by local and national media happenings. So for the time being that’s what you can expect.

So if you like what you’ve read, keep coming back. If you don’t like what you’ve read or feel uneasy about this change, keep coming back because even if you hate TV (which I sort of do), pop culture and media happenings you’re bound to find something you like. And it probably won’t be exclusively content in those three areas but for now my goal is to test the waters in those areas and see what I am capable of writing.

I'm open to catchy names so if you have any drop them in the comments. Thanks!

Charlie Sheen will be dead within the year?

No matter how hard he apparently tries to wipe himself from the face of the Earth, Charlie Sheen simply won't go the fuck away. Whether it's weekend-long cocaine benders or drinking more booze in a day that most Irish villages consume in a decade, Charlie Sheen just won't get his drunk ass out of the spotlight.

Of course it all sort of came to a head last week when he called out his show's (Two and a Half Men) creator/producer Chuck Lorre as taking advantage of him. Of course that wasn't enough for the likely crazy and/or coked-up Sheen -- he went on to reveal Chuck Lorre's Hebrew name (in a rather ethnic-clurry kind of way) as Chaim Levine. The jury's still out on whether or not that part's even true but he ventured down the Mel Gibson Expressway with a borderline ethnic slur. And so what if Lorre changed his name for showbiz purposes -- Charlie Sheen's real name is actually Carlos Estevez. But crazy druggie Charlie Sheen wasn't done yet, he of course had to drag Warner Brother TV Studio into this. They were responsible for shutting down production of Two and a Half Men last week but Sheen accused them of profiting wildly from the immensely successful show which Sheen stars in.

Outside of the obvious reasoning that businesses exist to profit wildly from their employees, this isn't really news. Sheen receives in excess of $1.25 million per episode of Two and a Half Men so unless he spending that much on cocaine 24 times each year (that would be ALOT of blow) he is rather handsomely rewarded for his twenty-two minutes of acting each week for approximately half of the year.

But why is this news? Why does it effect me?

It's the ever-present, mind-numbing analysis of nearly every step of those who entertain the masses. It's supposedly news because we like a good trainwreck. It's a twisted way to think of things but plenty of people love to see someone famous self-destruct. Sure, the Dr. Phils of the world are standing by, eager to help the oh-so-troubled stars and starlets because they are so fucking important to the world as a whole. Here's a newsflash -- THEY AREN'T IMPORTANT AT ALL. How many big name stars made a huge impact on our TV-centered culture in the past five decades and just as quickly as they became popular, they faded into obscurity?

Even more important is why do I care? I care because, like so many others, I like to see the undeservingly privileged destroy themselves. Sheen, who seems to live out a sort of autobiography as a sex and booze addicted slacker in coastal southern California on Two and a Half Men, has this coming to him. I'd like nothing more that for his show to fall off the radar. He frolicks around with prostitutes and porn stars yet claims to love his family. He has beaten his wife and girlfriends in the past yet claims to be a family man who loves and provides for them. He is the worst type of hypocrite and while the supporting cast and crew of his CBS sitcom don't deserve the unemployment line, this needs to be the end of Charlie Sheen because the mere mention of his name both infurates and intensely interests me. I hate him because he's not acting, he's just being himself but I love seeing his death spiral.

2011 predictions

Every year it seems like the unexpected happens -- it's what keeps us on our toes. And with our nation fucking obsessed with the happenings of celebrities, let's think about what will happen with the douchebags we obsess over along with a few non-celebrity predictions.

Celebrity deaths:
I can see Dick Clark kicking the bucket. Hearing audio of his appearance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve with Ryan Seacrest (get a longer title, please) was just sad. After suffering a stroke a few years ago, I think that his time to leave this world has come and 2011 will be when that happens.

Someone, too, from the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore will also kick the bucket. Snooki would be too obvious of a choice and not being familiar (thankfully) with the show I'm leaving this one open but one of those spray-tanned guidos will end up not being around in 2012.

Celebrity scandals:
Something big will happen with Miley Cyrus. A Miley Cyrus sex tape. Miley Cyrus filmed snorting cocaine. Miley Cyrus killing a panda in a drunken rage... Whatever the case, Miley's going to have a big year now that she's 18 and doing more stupid shit than I did when I was 21.

Celebrity divorce:
The most obvious candidate is the divorce of Katy Perry and Russell Brand. Russell Brand is as phony as they come. He's grating, annoying and the most likely candidate I can think of to cheat on his new wife. It's logical being that they both travel for music and movies respectively and he has a history of substance abuse which can lead to some pretty spectacularly poor decisions. Mark my words: Russel Brand and Katy Perry call their marriage quits in 2011.

Music:
Justin Bieber will be revealed as being 14 years old. Who does he think he's fooling? No 16 year old, regardless of his nationality (Canadian) looks that young.

In other music prognostications, Lil' Wayne will return to jail. It will probably be for a number of things including drunk driving, weapons possession, drug possession and having too damn many tattoos. Ke$ha (or Kesha if you're nasty) will finally have a sex tape leak. Two surprises will stem from this: the first being that she looks like shit without a ton of make-up and the second is that she has a third nipple.

Sports:
If the 2011 NFL season is actually played (there is that potential lockout looming) the Minnesota Vikings -- playing at a hastily revamped TCF Bank Stadium -- will finish with a record of 3-13. It won't matter because the taxpayers of Minnesota will be bamboozled into funding a new stadium and the season will be written off as a rebuilding year.

Politics:
Sarah Palin will officially announce her intention to run for president in 2012. This will also mark the official debut of the Tea Party as their own political party. The scary thing is that she will take herself seriously. Even scarier is that she'll land a larger share of the votes in 2012 than the Republican candidate -- Jeb Bush.

The obsession with Tiger Woods

In literally minutes, golf legend Tiger Woods is holding a press conference. The questions remains as to whether or not he will actually answer any questions pertaining to his scandalous personal sex life and his vast collection of mistresses ranging from strippers to night club hostesses to porn stars. But Tiger Woods doesn't really need to answer these questions. He's not famous because of his once squeaky-clean private life - he's a famous man because he plays an amazing round of golf.

But Americans have practically obsessed over what has become a four month scandal because it's what the media - in all forms - has been covering. It's been on the national nightly news, it's been the subject of every nightly entertainment show, it's been the top story in all forms of sports coverage and certain cable channels have gone as far as producing hourlong specials about the affairs of Tiger Woods based on information by women of questionable repute who seem all too eager to launch themselves in to fame in any way possible.

In short, all types of media (TV, newspaper, cable news, syndicated entertainment shows, blogs and radio) have taken a relatively unimportant story and made it far more than it should have been. After all, Woods hasn't been travelling around the country speaking to groups about the virtues of being faithful to one's spouse. It would have been far more scandalous if a body double had been playing in place of Woods and winning golf tournaments while Woods claimed credit for the skills of the nameless player.

If Americans had expended one-tenth of the energy on their own lives that far too many spent obsessing or even talking about the escapades of Tiger Woods maybe the divorce rate in this country wouldn't be 50%. Maybe people would care more about their jobs if they weren't focusing so much on the happenings of others. If we gave half a shit about our own lives, the next Tiger Woods-like bombshell wouldn't matter because it doesn't directly effect us. Really, has your life been altered in one damn way because Tiger Woods has a wandering penis? Has your day-to-day routine changed at all because Tiger Woods is a whore hound?

Have I alienated half the country yet or are there still some folks left here who want to see what the latest photos are at MinnPics?

Lady Gaga rocks face pearls, cameltoe?

I'll be damned if Lady Gaga didn't strike again at give America an entirely new look to critique. I'll give her credit for braving what New Yorkers are calling a "blizzard" wearing fishnets, a bikini, about 8 inch tall platform boots and a shitload of pearls glued to random areas of her body.

Sure, this is about as far from news as things can get but no matter what people think, she hasn't gotten to the top of the popular music mountain by being a talentless hack. Her music, while not for everybody, is legitimately popular. She sells singles via iTunes better than almost nobody else and she has dominated radio for the past year without taking a break.

The best I can come up with is that she's a distraction. During times like these (dank, cold weather following nearly endless snowfall; shitty economic situations; etc.) we would rather be distracted than reminded about our own pitiful lives and if that means visiting Huffington Post to look at Lady Gaga - a performance pop artist - and critique her latest "holy shit" fashion moment then so be it. I know I'd rather take a break and check out an attractive woman - yes, she is normal underneath all the make-up and bizarre outfits - than focus on the fact that my needs hundreds of dollars of repairs in the near future. Factor in that either Lady Gaga's sporting some camel toe or her pearl bikini bottom is somewhat wrinkled and awkwardly positioned and the photo above is the most perfect blogosphere fodder yet this week. (Take that George W. Bush billboard in Wyoming, MN!)

If you love photos - and who doesnt? - check out the best photos Minnesota has to offer at MinnPics!

We're done as a society - and Tiger Woods is to blame

How worthless are we as Americans when we obviously over-obsess over pop culture? The top news stories locally on Sunday night were the Minnesota Vikings win and the Tiger Woods car crash. I'm sure there was probably something fluffy about how retailers fared over the long shopping weekend as people pissed away a month's salary on a 94" LCD TV for themselves.

A few days later we are still overly obsessed about Tiger Woods. Wow, a sports star nailed a couple of blonde sluts on the side while his old lady was at home with their kid. He got busted. While it won't end his career or even effect any of his huge endorsement deals, it will be remembered. But it's not like he killed somebody. By doing some quick math, I have figured out that 43% of professional athletes eventually have extra-marital affairs. Some get found out, others keep hittin' that every time they visit that particular city. It's just an extrapolation of why half of all marriages end in divorce. I blame breast implants and arguments over who's going to do the dishes.

I wrote this for two reasons: I am sick and damn tired of hearing about Tiger Woods - I get it, he's a phenomenol golfer who totally fucked up and I am blown away at how stupid Americans must be that they have to Google the word "transgressions". The majority of Americans must be 6th grade dropouts or have been raised my a steady diet of Nickelodeon and video games because for "transgressions" to be the second-most searched-for-term is just sad.

As further proof, below is the top 25 Google Trends (current as 3 PM today)

1.tiger woods affair
2.transgressions
3.jaimee grubbs pics
4.kalika moquin pictures
5.jamie grubbs pictures
6.transgressions definition
7.meredith baxter
8.nancy locke
9.tiger woods text messages
10.tiger woods official website
11.tool academy jaimee grubbs
12.standing with hope
13.us weekly tiger woods
14.enneagon
15.mary dell abate
16.family ties
17.nancy locke meredith baxter
18.wtoc
19.tiger woods cheated on wife
20.michelle obama ape
21.chris matthews enemy camp
22.pacquiao vs mayweather
23.tool academy season 1
24.willie martinez fired
25.david birney

And if you're in a clicking mood and are also tired of all things Tiger Woods and Meredith Baxter, check out the fabulous photos at MinnPics.

Jay Leno to start sucking in primetime tonight

I should probably be writing this for my television blog but here I have no filter (and a far larger audience). That's the beauty of talking about tonight's debut of "The Jay Leno Show" tonight at 9 PM (central) on NBC. The biggest problem with Jay Leno is that his act on TV is bland. I'm surprised that his show at 10:35 PM drew enough audience to stay at number one for fifteen-plus years because I was unaware that senior citizens stayed up so late.

Leno's act is safe. There is no edge. Moving him to 9 PM (and gutting five hours of what could be original, scripted programming) could very well be the death of network television as we know it. Sadly, it all boils down to saving money. NBC has made countless mistakes in the programming area in teh past decade. They lost any grip they had on sports programming, never recovered from the ending of "Seinfeld" and failed to properly prepare when they knew that "Friends" and "E.R." couldn't last forever. They showed that their greatest weakness was being unable to change. They are stiff in their workings. NBC spent the past decade digging their own grave.

It even shows locally with NBC affiliate KARE-TV (Channel 11) sliding to number two in the 10 PM news ratings behind CBS affiliate WCCO-TV (channel 4). On the local front KARE seemed to follow suit by losing flashy anchorman Paul Magers to the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles (where he propelled the CBS affiliate there from fourth to first in local news ratings). That move was largely about money, too. Hell, they even lost their Paul Magers replacement, Frank Vascellero, to WCCO where some are saying that he's the eventual face of WCCO's news team.

But back to Jay Leno. While he is a sincere guy who truly cares about his staff, his act seems like it's been largely mailed in for the past few years. It almost seems like he saves his best stuff for his stand-up act as he tours the casino circuit while his former competitor, David Letterman, struck gold this summer by lurching ahead to number one in late night and continuing to be quirky with his monologue and behavior and actually asking guests questions rather than letting guests simply run thier lines and pimp their shit.

In the long run, if Leno succeeds it could be the end of scripted programming at 9 PM. It could be good in shaking up the rigid scheduling the networks have and free local affiliates to shift shows to where they work best with their local audiences. But it could be bad because a talk show is cheap. A talk show is a cop out in primetime and after Leno's show starts slipping in the ratings, expect the show to trim staff to keep costs down and with that quality and entertainment value will slide and the show's eventual downward spiral will begin and while I never hope for someone to fail, this sort of failure would be best for America's entertainment future.

So I've been away for well over a week but MinnPics will return in all its glory with all things Minnesota in photography! Check it out!

Her vagina is a clown car

I don't see the appeal of the genre of "reality" show that litters TLC. You know, the genre of enormous families who have their own TV show just because they have a huge family. The Duggar family, whose patriarch is appropriately named Jim Bob, are the face of this eerie new "reality" genre.

The family, who currently has 18 children, announced today that they are again expecting - bringing the tally to a whopping 19 children. That is quite the feat for a woman who is a mere 42 years old. It is also disturbing as hell. Hey, America is a free country and if you want to pop out enough kids to field two entire baseball teams, go for it. And if you want to finally profit from your freakishly large family, so be it.

My problem lies in how we, as Americans, gobble this shit up. How does something like this qualify as being worthy of a few minutes of time on NBC's Today Show? Are we so vapid and mindless that we are enthralled by this? Does it qualify as news? Who watches this show on TLC?

I've never met anyone in my admittedly small world who has ever watched this show (outside of myself). Is it a compelling program or is it just a camera crew following the circus-sized family and interviewing them in typical "reality" show fashion?

For the time being, MinnPics has taken a break from Minnesota and focuses instead on Los Angeles and the inferno that rages just outside the city. Photos of Minnesota return later today. Check it all out!

Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite?

I hate celebrities but this one is just too crazy not to mention: Apparently the odd pop singer famous for her stupid statements and bizarre costumes has admitted that she is a hermaphrodite. Yes, the pop singer who burst on to the scene in the past year is supposedly the proud owner of both male and female genitalia. And there's proof via a video from England's Glastonbury Festival.

“The reason I haven’t talked about it is that it’s not a big deal to me. Like come on. It’s not like we all go around talking about our vags. I think this is a great opportunity to make other multiple gendered people feel more comfortable with their bodies. I’m sexy, I’m hot. I have both a poon and a peener. Big f*cking deal.”

That quote is as least suspicious due to the fact that it has no origin and what good is a quote if it can't be sourced to the person who supposedly said it?

In my opinion, I have to say that the freeze-frame of the video is very convincing but she must be one hell of a tuck artist if it's true because after seeing her photo shoot from Rolling Stone I did not see a bulge of any sort. On the other hand, if Lady Gaga is the owner of a penis it would at least begin to explain just how weird she is - not that a chick with a penis is destined to be weird but Gaga is extraordinarily weird. Whatever the case is, Lady Gaga doesn't deserve all of this attention. She is too weird and stupid to justify even rumors about her. I just wish she'd shut the hell up and go away.

UPDATE: Being that the subject of Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite just won't go away, I did some more investigating in search of a crotch shot and, well, it seems that the bulge in the crotch of her leotard isn't a raging case of camel toe...
At least MinnPics doesn't traffic in celebrities, rumors or any combination of the two. Check out the killer photos now!