What Makes Me Happy

This was inspired by a friends blog earlier this week:

My husbands lasagna
Daisies
Rainstorms in the afternoon (actually any time)
E-mails from old friends
Buying a house in NY
The memory of my two dogs
Phone calls from my sister
The entire series collection of Sex and the City
3-day weekends
The smell of cake
Playing tennis with the hubby
Payday!
Champagne
A really great Vanilla Latte
Popcorn
My kitty when she chases her tail
BBQ's on our back porch looking at the gorgeous mountains we live in
Watching baseball (Except the Yankees)
My other kitty making his turkey noise when he gets wound up
The way my condo looks after a good cleaning
Dates with the hubby

Celebrities Say "I Don't Anymore"

Break-ups are nothing new in Hollywood or the celebrity scene. Every year there are couples breaking up that everyone knew wouldn’t make it and a few couples that people are shocked couldn’t make it work.

In the past years we’ve seen the shocking break-ups of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, and most recently Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra. Navarro and Electra are the second MTV reality couple to have called it quits.

Simpson and Lachey, though both having moderately successful singing careers pre-marriage, are most recognizable from their MTV reality show “Newlyweds”. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for a few years you know what I’m talking about. But if you don’t, this is the show that chronicled their first few years of marriage beginning in 2002. By the time Season 3 hit shelves on DVD, the marriage was over.

Electra and Navarro also had an MTV reality show called “’Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen and Dave” that chronicled their weeks leading up to their wedding in 2003. The season finale was their beautiful wedding set in a gothic version of the Garden of Eden. Very dark yet extremely beautiful! They just announced on July 18, 2006 they are “amicably separating” after 2 ½ years of marriage.

This latest celebrity break-up got me thinking about all the divorces and break-ups that seem to be happening just within the past months, weeks and even days. After the plethora of stories surfacing every day about celebrities divorcing you have to wonder why the divorce rate in Celebrity-land seems so much higher than “real life”.

My first theory is what many celebrities use as their scapegoat to their failed marriage; the tabloids broke them up. Many people say the constant attention and scrutiny on their marriage leads to them breaking up. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, or “Bennifer” as the tabloids dubbed them, said the constant paparazzi presence and parade of stories about them made it hard for them to keep their relationship alive.

Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s reps said quite the same thing. For months, Us Magazine and other publications were speculating problems in their marriage after seeing them apart more often and Simpson not wearing her wedding ring. Denial after denial they assured everyone that their marriage was rock solid. A few months later, they were announcing their separation.

This doesn’t make sense to me because if they don’t want their relationship scrutinized, don’t put it on reality television and then expect people to leave you alone! Also, if your marriage is solid then it doesn’t matter what people speculate or say about it.

Other theories that are out there include constant temptation taking the forms of other people being attractive and also the temptation of being a big star. Lachey said Simpson became a different person once the temptation of being a big star went to her head. There was also talk of infidelity on Simpson’s part. Seems she gave in to both temptations; fame and sex. She cared more about how famous she was and being seen than working on her marriage.

In the case of Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe, it seemed, to some, they were separating because Swank wanted to further her career more than her marriage. Their nine-year marriage went south and no one was saying why. Then the mudslinging began when a Vanity Fair interview with Swank surfaced. She said the reason her nine-year marriage broke up was the fact Lowe was hiding a substance abuse problem. When asked if he was jealous of her successful career, she has two Oscars, Swank responded he wasn’t jealous of her career but blames “the lack of opportunities in his own career.” Ouch.

Whatever reason celebrities break up, and there is always a new reason, it seems they will always remain close friends and still care deeply for each other…or so their reps say.

With the string of MTV reality break-ups, this should be a cautionary tale to other celebrities looking to put their relationship on television and in the public eye. But not only the MTV crowd should be aware. This may be contagious and VH1 could catch it. Britney Spears and Kevin Federline with their show “Chaotic” and Chris Knight and Adrianne Curry, of “America’s Next Top Model” fame, with their show “My Fair Brady” should watch out. They could be next!

Below is a list of current celebrity break-ups:
v Paul McCartney & Heather Mills McCartney
v Dave Navarro & Carmen Electra
v Nick Lachey & Jessica Simpson (Lachey is rumored to be dating Vanessa Minnillo and Simpson is rumored to be dating….everyone)
v Christy Brinkley & Peter Cook
v Shannon Miller (Olympic gymnast in 2000 & 2004) & husband
v Chad Lowe & Hilary Swank
v Denise Richards & Charlie Sheen
v Heather Locklear & Richie Sambora (Sambora is now dating Denise Richards)
v Penelope Cruz & Matt McConaughey
v Tori Spelling & Charlie Shanian (Tori is now remarried to Dean McDermott)
v Matt LeBlanc & Melissa McKnight
v Nikki Sixx & Donna D’Errico
v Christina Applegate & Johnathon Schaech
v Lance Armstrong & Sheryl Crow

Copyright 2006 by Katy Gaffney

Paris to Stop Breathing?

Photo Courtesy of AP



Today, Paris Hilton told Regis and Kelly that she was going to stop breathing for a year. Actually it’s not that extreme but for her, what she announced is basically the same thing. She will abstain from sex for a year to try and “rediscover” herself.

Hilton says she is imposing this ban on her sex-life because she feels with all the men she has dated she has somewhat lost her identity. She focuses too much on the men and not enough on herself, according to Hilton.

This comes on the heels of her saying she isn’t ditzy in real life. She’s trying to convince people that she doesn’t use the baby-talk like voice in her everyday life and when she’s in front of the camera she’s playing a role. Hmmm. Somehow I doubt this. I was taught if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…. it’s probably not an act.

In my opinion she’s trying to drum up publicity for her upcoming album that finally has a release date of August 7, 2006. Her publicist is trying to clean up her image after her sex-tape scandal, countless photos of her in not much else besides some strategically placed scraps of clothing and dating everyone from Deryck Wibley of Sum 41 to Nick Carter and two Greek shipping heirs (one of which she was engaged to and one of which has dated numerous other starlets). Not to mention two hit and run accidents she’s been in (once she was driving, once she was not).

I wonder if some of her videos will be shot in night vision, just for old time sake.

And do you know how hard it is to find a decent picture of Ms. Hilton on an image search?!

Good luck Paris Hilton, Good Luck!

Copyright 2006 by Katy Gaffney

Wonderful America

By: Katy Gaffney July 10, 2006

Copyright 2006 By Katy Gaffney

A story came out recently about a man who has been in prison since he was 18 years old. Alan Newton was convicted of rape in 1985 and sentenced to up to 40 years behind bars. He is now 40 and was just released after new DNA evidence was tested. He was found to be innocent of the crime he just served 22 years for. He filed an appeal 12 years ago but was denied because the New York Police Department couldn’t locate the evidence and they suggested it had been destroyed.

Stories like this surface now and again about people serving decades for crimes they were later exonerated of due to DNA evidence. It happens far more frequently than it should. Once in awhile someone may slip through the cracks but with our “great American legal system” at work, it seems to happen because people get lazy and don’t do their work as thoroughly as they should.

This instance got me thinking about this man and other people who the legal system has failed. According to the Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, 181 people in 32 states have been released from prison due to DNA testing.

The DNA evidence being used to right the wrongs of the American legal system brings into light a larger problem; the fact that these people were wrongfully accused and incarcerated for periods of time.

We must look at our legal system closely to understand why this is happening. In Newton’s case eyewitness testimony was used as the prosecutions main tool. According to the Innocence Project nearly 80% of the people they’ve exonerated from prison were put there using eyewitness testimony.

It seems that the victims and witnesses of the particular crime are mistaken a lot of the time on what or who they saw. In numerous cases the authorities don’t take correct precautions to try and make line-ups as unbiased as possible. According to a New York Times article by Jim Dwyer, Newton’s accuser told prosecutors that she wasn’t entirely sure Mr. Newton was her attacker but they based the majority of their defense on her testimony.

The Stanford Journal of Legal Studies ran an article entitled The Process of Eyewitness Testimony, by Laura Engelhardt, that says bias appears within memories whether the person is knowledgeable of that or not. Engelhardt writes that the very process of forming a memory creates distortion. “Perhaps it is the terrible truth that in many cases we are simply not capable of determining what happened, yet are duty-bound to so determine.”
With our “fantastic” legal system, how does this happen? It brings up the question that if there are so many experiments done and articles written about how unreliable eyewitness testimony is, why is it relied upon so heavily against DNA evidence?

News Flash!

Here's a news flash for ya... NOT EVERYONE IN VAIL IS ON VACATION! Sorry, just had to get that out.

Every morning, while I drive to work, I get stuck behind the shiny car with the Enterprise rental car sticker on it. This person goes about 15 MPH under the speed limit while they gaze out the window at the mountains and summer-green ski resorts.

Yes, I understand that this is an extremely beautiful part of the country. Large mountains, clear skies and green valleys as far as the eye can see. I live in this valley and I get to see the beauty everyday. No one should be deprived of taking it all in.

However, I should not be deprived of getting to my office on time either.

Note: If you find yourself driving through the Vail Valley and want to absorb the beauty of this land, PULL OVER and enjoy it while the residents that actually have jobs try to get to work.

Thanks :)

The Hunt for Baby Suri and mom Katie Holmes: Mission Impossible?

Within the past year Tom Cruise has found a “magnificent” woman, stared in yet another action movie and has become a biological father for the first time. Coincidentally his fabulous life-altering experiences coincide with his box office hits (or flops!). It seems every time his name starts getting out of people’s thoughts and off magazine covers something happens to make him turn up again.

While he was promoting his then-upcoming Mission Impossible III he was whisking a hot, young starlet around the world. He proposed and felt the need to announce it at a press junket for his movie! When hype for his movie started to wane the “happy” couple announced they were expecting a baby. After his movie hit the big screen and box office earnings were lower than anticipated, reports were circulating about a silent birth and an adult-sized pacifier for Ms. Holmes to bite down on during child birth.

Now that little Suri has graced the world with her existence her name isn’t the only thing drawing speculation. (It was announced her name meant princess in Hebrew which turned out not to be the case.) It’s been about 80 days since Suri was born and still no picture of her anywhere. Other celebrity children born around the same time have already been photographed many times, as their parents are proud and want to show them off. Not only baby Suri but mom Katie Holmes has also been out of the lime light ever since.

This has gotten some people to speculate everything from Tom Cruise trying to get back on magazine covers to the notion that Holmes wasn’t really pregnant and the whole thing was a sham. Many women who have had their own babies say that even at nine months pregnant, Holmes was carrying the baby too high in her abdomen to look real.

And notice how Holmes never really talks. She didn’t release a statement after her daughter was born and when she actually is out in public, glued to the side of Cruise with her perma-grin on, the only words she ever utters are, “Everything is great. I’m happy.”

“How’s your new movie coming?”
“Everything is great. I’m happy.”

“How are you enjoying being a mother?”
“Everything is great. I’m happy.”

“Do you support public nudity?”
“Everything is great. I’m happy.”

Although, to me, one thing is sure; Tom Cruise is only looking out for Tom Cruise! He’ll do anything to stay “young and hot” and in the press. Though I don’t quite understand one thing; Tom and Katie want their baby and their wedding plans (if there actually are any) to be so secret, yet the entire time they were traipsing around Europe and he was jumping on day-time T.V. couches they were more than happy to let the whole world into their life.

What changed?

Follow up: I just read that TMZ has obtained a copy of the birth certificate for Suri Cruise. The hospital she was born at requires one to be filed within 10 days of birth, her's was 20 days later. The hospital official that signed the certificate wasn't actually in the room when Suri was born but if the doctor is not available then she is authorized to sign instead. What's also puzzling is the fact that federal law requires a parent or representative to sign the birth certificate. The ilegible signature is categorized as "friend" not parent. The only reason they apparently decided to finally file the certificate is because little Suri needs a passport and can't get one without a birth certificate. Things just keep getting stranger!