WTF #2: Keeping Up With the Kardashians (UPDATE)

I’m still not sure who green-lighted this series, but the other night I was flipping through the channels and found this gem of a show on E! Keeping Up With the Kardashians follows the lives antics of one mildly famous young twenty-something and her fame-grubbing family members. Maybe its the fact that the mom married former Olympic Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner, but nobody really quite knows why main star Kim Kardashian and her family deserve their own reality series. Ok, so Kim made a sex tape (that nobody cared nor knew about), is dating Reggie Bush, and her father was a lawyer in the OJ Simpson trial. Still, there’s no reason why any of these factors should allow this show to continue on TV, especially when E! is pitching the same reality garbage over and over again. I got even more outraged when there was a special episode devoted to bonus footage. Like I didn’t get enough mindless action watching the regular series, now they’re telling me there’s even MORE crappy television about the same idiotic people. It actually makes shows like this more appealing to watch.

Plus the other two daughters are named “Kourtney” and “Khloe”. Good grief!

Image courtesy of E!

UPDATE 6/10: According to Gawker via The Hollywood Reporter, Kardashian step-sibling and douchebag socialite Brody Jenner (also known as the on-again off-again boyfriend plaything of one of “The Hills” stars) will be getting his own reality series on MTV entitled “Bromance”. Awesome, because we all know how incredibly successful “Princes of Malibu” was (if you can even remember that torrid show, bonus points). *BARF*

Upper East Siders Gripe About Banners

A New York Times article from Sunday reports on those banners placed on lampposts on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. Apparently, they’re no good, and even more, they’re annoying and unsightly. *GASP*! One resident even refers to them as “dirty laundry”. Although the city removed the banners after much complaint (within an impeccable 24 hours), it sort of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. On one hand, I guess if you’re paying $1 million+ to live on the UES, you shouldn’t have those filthy banners blocking your view of the street below, god forbid you miss your chauffeured Maybach pulling up to your awning, but what strikes me is that the banners were removed in a day! That’s unheard of. It took me five days to be able to get a guy from Time Warner to come up to my apartment to fix a modem, and some rich lady gets the City of New York to remove public banners in a day? Were they really that unsightly? I guess money does buy happiness…with speedy results!

WTF #1: FitFlops

So I’ve been seeing ads for these on the Lex recently.  Apparently, these fitflops are “engineered” to tone your thighs and legs so that you can get shapely legs as you use them more and more.  Is this the biggest crock of BS or what?  I’ve tried walking a lot in regular flip flops and all I got was blisters.  Plus, doesn’t the whole system compromise itself if you stuff your face with fatty foods and crap while wearing these overpriced shoes anyway?  Save your money and buy something useful for your health, like a gym membership, fat free food, this, or even one of these.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

Weekend Wrapup – Pinkberry, Belmont, and Lockdown

The weekend was uneventful, yet somewhat exciting. I had dinner at a bland (but not overpriced) thai restaurant on the Upper East Side. Probably some of the most tasteless, heavy massaman curry I have had yet. Later, my friend and I finished off our meal with a trip to the ever popular Pinkberry, you know, just to see what all the hype is about. I’m not sure why everyone flocks to Pinkberry, or why women line up 30 deep for this overpriced “it tastes good and it’s not fattening” treat, but Pinkberry happens to be one of the most vile things I have ever tasted. Not even my generous scoop of cocoa pebbles could make it taste any better. Why can’t it taste more like ice cream and less like shit? Maybe they should rename it “Stinkberry”, or “This stuff sucks”, or “Go waste your money elsewhere”.

On Saturday, the weather shot up to 93 degrees as Kristen and I ventured out on overcrowded LIRR trains to Belmont Park for the 140th Belmont Stakes. Sadly, we left early, but between the $4 water, the 90,000+ people, the hot humid weather, and that I lost about $20 on bets, was it really worth it to stay? Yeah, Big Brown was probably going to win, but it wasn’t worth being uncomfortable about it. We left around 4:45 (after Race 8 and my only winning bet of the day, which netted me $1), to head over to the Village for Mexican food. There, in the climate controlled comfort of an indoor restaurant surrounded by 24 ounce margaritas and salty tortilla chips, we saw Big Brown choke the big one and a horse with 38 to 1 odds win the race. Awesome. Also, I didn’t think you could do worse than $4 water at the racetrack, but with $5 gelato for dessert, apparently you can.

Sunday sucked. I went to sleep waaay too late the night before and was woken up by the loud noises of the Puerto Rican Day Parade outside the building. I didn’t even leave my apartment until that afternoon, when the parade ended and traffic resumed its normal patterns, but as soon as I left, I was met with a heavy downpour. Literally, I walked about 4 blocks and was half soaked before buying an umbrella at Duane Reade. Took a walk down the West Side for a nice change in scenery, then came back and had dinner and went to sleep early.

Today I start my new job at the software company, where I will be setting up for a trade show in midtown. Should be pretty exciting, and so far, as I unpack and repack crates between the air conditioned cubicles of the office, it sure beats running up and down the West Side yelling at landlords to open up buildings for some crazy unpaid photographer.