I watched it also and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I couldn't tell if the girls were reading from a script or actually being themselves because in many of the camera angles and scenes captured they would show one girl make a statement and the other respond. You can tell they had to stop rolling to cut the camera to the other side to see the response. It was like watching 'Cribs' meets 'Real World' meets 'Americas funniest home videos'. It was silly and entertaining but those girls are screwed up. I was looking at Paris Hilton's parents sending her off and I was saying to myself maybe I am the crazy one but something has to be wrong with this family to let their daughter come up like this.

I know Nicole's mom from my Atlanta days. (She's the cousin of a friend.) I feel embarrassed for Brenda. I know parents often can't help how their kids turn out, but I expected more of a girl reared with all possible opportunites than shaking her arse at discos and shooting H.

Very interesting - thanks Diva. And they are totally shameless about their ineffectuality. The thing that absolutely fried me about Hilton was an interview where she said she didn't need college, that she had made better use of the last four years.

As if she couldn't have been a skank-sack party girl while still picking up a few tidbits about being a human being, and life in the semi-real world for four years to at least slightly deflect her horrifying image and improve her life.

Stupid, stupid little smug bitch - oh-oh, there's that word again.

"these young women are stupid, outrageously self-centered, vapid, vacuous, nihilistic little ninnies."

Among the many thinks that I appreciate about your posts Eric is that you continually educate me with your formidable vocab. Thank goodness Roget's is always close at hand. ;-)

thanks BB, glad to be of service!

Eric, I might have missed it, but was there any word on the Smug Pricks X-Mas-A-Palooza?

I wholeheartedly agree Eric. One thing does strike me though. That even the idle rich will make fools of themselves for even greater fame.

Part of me says we've jumped off the cliff, the other part just wants to curl and watch another hour of Paris being a complete dummy on national tv. I can't make up my mind.

Jackson, the idle rich, who are more visible in Europe due to the lingering aristocracy, have always been supremely pointless and idiotic so I don't see any cliffs there. I imagine these two were picked because they are friends and are utterly shameless and without guile or guilt in their insular retardation.

Chris, between my pre-childbirth tension and recent outbursts of smugness, I sense a gala performance and enthusiastic "review" of a Smug Pricks performance coming up real soon.

With this TV show as evidence, is it safe to say that pop culture as a whole has
"jumped the shark"?

I'd say broadcast TV has anyway. I imagine when the execs are finally convinced that people are sick of this stupid faux-reality shit, we might get something more interesting again, but I wouldn't bet on it either. I would say the real answer is fragmentation that has left the broadcast audience much smaller and even more fickle than before.

Eric, best wishes on the natal front.

I anxiously await the SP's next move.

Broadcast TV will decreasingly exert influence beyond its numbers relative to all the other channels, as Eric intimated.

I can think of several channels that I might watch for an hour or two a week...

Thanks Chris, I have tried to contain my percolating bile as the last time resulted in the self-immolation of the target - there are few powers greater than righteous indignation unleashed.

Yes. Yes indeed.

On a related front, the same to the better half.

thanks, will pass on

they are . . . utterly shameless and without guile or guilt in their insular retardation.

That's probably the most eloquent summation of this show's appeal I have seen yet.

i saw an interview with nicole where she said she'd never heard of 'generic' food products.

not surprising, i guess.

thanks Tom, at least they're "good" at something. Paris had never heard of Wal-Mart - ponder that for a moment.How disconnected from our shared culture would you have to be to have no idea what the hell Wal-Mart is. Fucking Martians have heard of Wal-Mart.

I love WAL-MART. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. Illegal immigrants and all.

I am proud to say I have never shopped at Wal-Mart. IMO, it symbolizes much of what is wrong with your country.

If you were as poor as I am, you would not only shop at Wal-mart, but name your first born Wal M. Art.

Besides, those old people at the door, I mean who can resist old people greeting you?

i can understand the money issue.

personally, i can't stand walmart...mostly because it's so friggin' noisy in there, it's like stickin' your head beyond the gates of delirium.

i'm gettin' a little panicky just thinking about it.

I'm not too impressed with Wal-Mart's trade partners.

Apart from all kinds of legitimate concerns about Wal-Mart, I like to be able to walk in one door and get pretty much everything I need or want in one place at one time for more or less the lowest possible price. That is hard to beat - hence its weed-like spread.

I don't like the warehouse stores because the choices are so damned big. What is a single person, or a small family, supposed to do with 24 or 48 rolls of toilet paper or paper towels anyway? In Portland and Seattle, the population is about half singles. But, the warehouse stores seem not to realize we exist.
And, I might as well admit that I've never actually been in Wal-Mart. Not out of snobbery, but because of lack of need. Maybe I'll go as a field trip.