Kelly Bensimon's Breasts

Kelly Bensimon of the Real Housewives of New York City may not have the worst boob job of all time, but I don't know if I have ever seen two mammaries who hated each other more. They hate each other more than everyone hates Kelly. They might not ever reconcile.

I fail to understand if you are sporting one of these unfortunate unraveling breast structures, (I'm talking to you, Tori Spelling) why you would still put your chest on display in this manner. Surely there is a better way to situate them. Wear a bra? Wear something that covers that region a little more? A dress that wrangles them closer together? Why this acreage of sternum assaulting our eyes, Kelly? We all know you have the money to fix this!

Wedge Sandals

A friend and I saw "Duplicity" in the theater last night. Julia Roberts wears a lot of charming dresses in that movie, but at one point I noticed she was wearing the biggest cardinal sin a woman can commit: the &!%#@ wedge heel. True, her pair wasn't as offensive as others I've seen -- go mid-heel espadrille or go home -- but it re-ignited my rage over this atrocious phootwear phenomenon.

Look, I get that they're all summery and good for adding height (trust me, I am all about appearing taller), but there are about 895,281 other shoes out there that succeed much better on both of these levels. What most women don't seem to understand is that the wedge heel actually stumps your legs. Instead of elongating them, you wind up looking like a teetering hooker with a five-inch neon-colored Styrofoam growth on your foot. 

The other issue is that you cannot pair them with anything that isn't cheap-looking. My colleague Sylvia recently summed up this up nicely: "They're the shoes porn stars and small-town 'hotties' wear everywhere -- the ones still wearing tracksuits." 

To drive my point home, I'll end with a gallery of some of the worst wedge sandals I could find on the Internet. These are from places millions of women shop at -- Macy's, Nordstrom, Victoria's Secret, Shoes.com -- so beware and stay clear. 

(Photo above is the "Silent" wedge thong from BCBGirls; Nordstrom, $40. The name is fitting, considering that would be the most polite reaction if someone's very good friend said, "Hey, I love these shoes. Do you like them?")

Below is the "Bog Wild" wedge sandal from Aerosoles; Macy's, $70. It's incredible that the folks at Aerosoles chose such a devastatingly accurate name for this shoe. I can't imagine the name alone nets them many sales. And speaking of "net," that's probably the other fine accessory you'd likely be wearing if you were indeed "wild" enough to wade into a bog. 

Next up, the "Sabra Bezel" shoe from Baby Phat; shoes.com, $51. I'm pretty sure this is the line overseen by Kimora Lee "Fabulosity" Simmons, which should be enough background information to explain this perfectly.  

Oof. Back to my point about wedge heels looking like a stumpified extension of your legs: flesh-colored wedge heels will take this to an extreme. Plus, it seems just lazy that someone would make a (somewhat) normal wedge casing and decide, hey, let's bridge the sides together with some fatty straps of elastic. BCBGirls, what do you want from us? BCBGirls "Marvi" wedge sandal; Macy's, $98.

I saw this beauty -- the "Rylee" wedge sandal from Sam Edelman, $170 -- while flipping through the latest Nordstrom catalog. Then I realized that Sam Edelman does nothing but design fugly shoes at exorbitant prices. I realize retailers need a breadth of products to satisfy every taste level, but this is taking things too far. Encouraging young women to frolic around in platform wedges that combine mock-Honduran embroidery, denim and bows is simply shameful. And for nearly $200! Are you outraged yet?

When Sylvia and I first discussed this post, it took about six seconds for her to know exactly what I was talking about. "Like these?" she asked. She sent me a URL. The domain name was "victoriassecret.com." I knew she'd found Mecca. Sure enough, here it is, the wedge heel sandal, in its most basic and egregious form. Bust out the Ed Hardy tees and the toe rings -- we're home. 

Celebrity Perfumes

Celebrities are pumping out scents left and right. It started with J.Lo and it certainly won't end with Halle Berry, whose product I just observed in the pages of Cosmo. It's lame enough that stars are slapping their names on these odors, sometimes even claiming to have invented them...but I really can't deal with what the final products look like! Do they want to sell it to me or to a toddler? Check out Britney Spears' little assembly of treats:

This is the type of crap I can get with a quarter in the machine next to the gumballs. In fact, the pink one even looks like a gumball! I'm not going to pay $50 for a gumball! And neither are my five-year-old friends.

By the way, I hear Avril Lavigne is threatening to foist a new stink on the public, what kind of hot mess do you suppose they'll come up with for that one? It's already ugly.

American Idol: Intro Graphics

Look, all I'm saying is that a show that can afford to pay its star judge $36 million a year and consistently obliterates all other television programs in Nielsen ratings can probably afford a better opener.

You know those hokey commercials for computer and video game-design schools with the clunky Avatars and 1993-reminiscent 3D animation? That's akin to the work some folks at Fox decided to air as the intro to their midweek juggernaut.

I appreciate that American Idol chose to do something different from other reality show openers, which feature cheesy video clips or photos of each contestants with his or her name emblazoned across the screen. (Think "Real World," "Making the Band," "America's Next Top Model," etc.) But the incumbent intro is so faceless. It's all big cheese credits and little recognition of the talent that appears on-stage and on-screen. Yeah, we get to see weird, pixelated flahbacks of past (ahem, noteworthy) winners but, again, it doesn't have much to do with the people we're about to watch for the next hour or two.

Simply put, the American Idol intro is hard to relate to, it doesn't succeed in giving us that "sold-out mega concert" feel and, in the words of its own Simon Cowell, the aesthetics are completely forgettable.

Note: I'm not going to tackle the theme song. While I'm not its biggest fan, either, those twangy, synthetic notes are so synonymous with the show that it's probably one of the few things -- including the logo, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Ryan Seacrest -- that remain untouchable at this point. 

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