Yet again, Hollywood wakes up to another Charlie Sheen story. This time, it turns out to be a hernia. But how many more times does this many have to be arrested/hospitalized/rehabbed until he gets his act together? I would hate to see one of my favorite TV shows, Two and a Half Men, go away because the star actor overdosed. Many people say addicts need to hit rock bottom before they realize they need help, but when everyone around Charlie Sheen coddles him so much, will he hit rock bottom before its too late?

Of course, he isn't the only celebrity who is resorting to drugs. Lindsay Lohan has been in and out of rehab many times over the past few years. Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson have recently died due to their drug addictions. How many more people need to die before agents or producers start making harsher consequences for celebrities?

I have never really been a big fan of award shows until my recent obsession with acting. I take that back. I was obsessed with teen award shows when I was, well, a teen. This was the first awards show that I DVR'd and watched from beginning to end.

To be completely honest, I was most excited about the fashion. I wish I could say I was more excited about the awards show, but I haven't seen 95% of the shows and movies that are nominated. Its hard to be like, "Oh yeah, I definitely agree with that win," or "WTF? That show/movie sucked!" Of course, any movie with Mark Wahlberg in it automatically has my vote. It has two of my votes if Christian Bale is in it too. I always think I am watching too much TV until I watch an award show and hear about all of the TV shows I have never seen or worse, have never heard of. Regardless, I am hugely biased against Glee or Twilight or anything hideously teenie-bopper terrible. Are people really so simple minded that movies or shows made for teens are far and away favorites?

Now, the fun part...a few of my favorite dresses:

Julianne Hough: Very Greek goddess. Ryan Seacrest did something right.

Eva Longoria: So simple, but so gorgeous. I wish I could rock curves like that.

Natalie Portman: That hump, That lovely baby bump

Worst dressed:

Angelina Jolie: What's with the shoulder pads? I was hoping we left the 80's in the 80's.

Anne Hathaway: Again with the shoulder pads

Helena Bonham Carter: Great actress, terrible dresser. You can get away with mismatched socks, but not shoes.

Jennifer Lopez: I liked the dress, but the shawl made her look more middle-aged than she is.

My favorite dress *drum roll*

Megan Fox: I'm not a huge fan of pink, but the pastel pink, the criss-crossing straps up top and a spritz of bling make this dress really beautiful.

Anyone else have any other favorites or glaring fashion faux pas?
Any thoughts on the award winners or who should have won?

I am a Mypoints.com member and have been happily for a couple of years, but recently they have been pissing me off.  For those of you who don't know what Mypoints.com is, it is a website through which you can do various activities or buy things online and earn points doing so. Once you have accumulated a certain number of points, you can redeem them for a gift card or you can donate them to one of the charities they support.

About a week before Thanksgiving, I redeemed my points for a $50 Express gift card. Now, they have had Express gift cards of other amounts, but not $50 until recently and I was holding out for it to become available. I cashed in the minute I saw it was available. They say on the website that it takes 3-6 weeks for the gift cards to arrive. Eight weeks (and much frustration) later, I finally received my gift card in the mail...well after all of the holiday sales. Thanks My Points!

I took my "winnings" and pranced right over to the nearest Express store. I try on a handful of dresses, take forever to make up my mind and finally decided on the dress of my dreams (it was the absolute last one in that store AND it was the perfect size...I never have that kinda luck) and another more casual spring dress. I stroll up to the register only to find out that my gift card is being declined due to a $0 balance. Keep in mind that I am a poor college student and don't exactly have $50 lying around to make the purchase anyways. I call the customer service people to find out that Express can't do anything for me until MyPoints can prove that they put money on the card. I put my precious dresses on hold and leave the store disappointed.

I called My Points twice when I got home just to have them tell me that the person that I need to talk to is "in a meeting" and "gone on lunch". I left my phone number and e-mail address only to receive not one, but ZERO emails or calls from this mystery person whom I need to talk to.

Ben called them today because frankly I was way past my boiling point with these people. It took them two weeks longer than they said it would take only for my card to not have any money on it anyways and now they are giving me the run around for their mistake. Not to mention that it took me like a year to accumulate enough points for a $50 gift card and I was afraid that I would be out all of the points and all of the money.  They tell him that they sent me an email with instructions. After re-checking my inbox and junk box, I state that I indeed did not receive any e-mail from them. They tell me that I have to mail my gift card back in so they can reload it with money and they will mail it back. Ben told them how disgusted I have been with their service thus far and how slow they have been and that I have dresses on hold. I kinda wanted to yell at them to overnight the card back to me.

Well, Ben and I went back to Express tonight as they were only going to hold the dresses until close tonight. We bought my dream dress and left the other one.

With any luck, I will have my gift card in time for 2011's holiday sales.

Welcome to the inaugural Famous Friday! In this section of my blog, I will be discussing different aspects of fame, some of which I will attempt to use as I strive for stardom myself. I always wanted to know how people went from nothing  to Kim Kardashian, so I will attempt to do it myself and write about it along the way. If all else fails, this section will at least be successful as a satire of fame.

To start, I will be discussing social media. More specifically, I will be discussing my use of them and my opinion of various social medias. I will also talk about how currently famous people use social media. I will go in chronological order starting with Myspace.

I had intended to update my blog daily while in vacation. I'm not sure if any of you have been to Las Vegas, but Las Vegas is different from any other vacation destination. While you are there, there is no time for anything, not even sleep. It is normal for Ben and I to actually sleep less on vacation than we do during a normal week, but our lack of sleep was a bit excessive the past couple of days. And let's not forget the travel excitement that marked the end of our trip.

We got into Vegas late Wednesday night. We spent our first three nights at the Mirage, where we lost a bunch of money. The last two nights we spent at New York New York where we also lost a lot of money. What amazes me about the hotels and casinos is how much detail they put into the architecture and decorations. They spare no expense to have the fanciest or coolest or grandest hotel. Aria is one of the newest casinos and is really gorgeous and modern. The Wynn and Encore are also fairly new and also have a very fancy and high end feel. Places like New York New York and Paris put a lot of detail in the architecture to make it feel like you are walking through New York or Paris. Other casinos that spend a great deal of money on expensive details include Caesar's Palace, Bellagio, the Venetion and Palazzo. The Luxor and MGM bring in the cool factor with the pyramid structure that is synonymous with the Luxor and the giant lion enclosure that is located within MGM's casino.

Another aspect of Vegas that I enjoyed very much is the shopping. The casinos like to keep your hopes high by placing many high end designer shops within the casino. I didn't spend much as we wanted to save our money for gambling, but it was nice to dream.

Unlike The Hangover, we survived Vegas. We successfully limited our booze intact. We survived the bombardment of "Girls of Las Vegas" trading card hand outs. We walked miles a day without serious injury.

Each night, we spent some time hanging out with Ben's friends playing slot machines. We won some. We lost some. We laughed a lot! We all went out to eat to Samba, a Brazilian BBQ restaurant, on Saturday night. It was the first time I have ever been to a Brazilian BBQ. I highly recommend it if its time for a splurge day in your diet. I do not recommend it if you are vegetarian.

On Saturday night, Ben and I went to my first ever fashion show. It was only about 15 minutes long and wasn't quite as exciting as we thought it was going to be. We were told it would show clothes that contained multi-colored and/or blinking lights in them that illuminate with body movement. In some clothes, the lights pulsate to the rhythm of music or sound. Two outfits were part of the new lighting line. The other outfits were standard clothing while the models carried hi tech objects such as iPhones. Following the fashion show, we went to the Xbox party where Benny played poker with Shannon Elizabeth. He literally talked her ear off. I'm sure he'll be posting pictures on his blog soon enough.

During the entirety of our trip, I really wanted to see Peepshow starring Holly Madison. I live and breath the original Girls Gone Wild. I am addicted to Holly's World and Kendra and never miss an episode. I have never met the girls in person, but I feel like we are BFF's. As the weekend began to draw to a close, I grew disappointed as we were running out of money and we had not yet gone to the show. At $56 for the cheapest ticket, it did not look like we would be able to go. When I had finally given up hope on being able to go to the show, we found out about a deal where we could buy tickets for $30 a piece if we took a tour and listened to a presentation about buying a time share in Vegas. They are amazingly gorgeous condos and may be a possibility in the future. Better yet, I got to see Holly! The show is about how Holly's character (Bo) can't find love. One night, she falls asleep and wakes up in a Peepshow fairy tale land. The Peep diva is trying to get  Bo to break out of her shell and be a little bit more "naughty" in her love life. She does this by taking her through a series of fairy tales. The characters in the stories strip, pole dance and sing remixed pop songs. In the end, Bo finds a man and even dances and strips herself. It was very Vegas-esqe.Overall, it was a really great show and I am so happy that I could go.

We were scheduled to leave early Monday morning. We wake up, check out of the hotel and arrive at the airport only to find out that our flight had been canceled due to weather in Atlanta. They tell us that we will not be able to fly out until Thursday at the earliest. They also told us that they could not refund us for our flight and that we may be able to receive credit towards a future flight, but that is not a guarantee. Also, due to the economy, they wouldn't transfer us to a flight with a different airline. To make matters worse, we did not have enough money to buy tickets for another flight or stay at a hotel three more nights. Fortunately, JetBlue had a direct flight to Boston late that night. My parents saved us and lent us money to buy the tickets home.

So we had 15 more hours in Las Vegas with very little money. We spent that time walking up and down the Strip going into each casino to say we have been to them all. Then I remembered that my cousin, Nicole, whom I hadn't seen in about a year and a half was in town. She works with Disney on Ice and they had just arrived for a couple of shows. We met up with her and talked and walked for a couple of hours. Then we went to a casino to watch some of the BCS championship game before she had to head back to her hotel. So in a sense, it was nice that our flight was canceled so I could spend some time with family.

And now, the best part. The pictures!

Wynn and Encore

The Venetian

Sugar Mountains

Mirage lobby

Bellagio lobby ceiling

Caesar's Palace

Bellagio Fountains

Well, we have survived 2 1/2 days of 2011. Quite an accomplishment. Go us! I hope everyone is still sticking to their resolutions. I'm pretty excited about mine. I finished knitting Ben's scarf. He hasn't seen the finished product yet. I'm sure it will look good on him. It definitely looks great on me. The yarn is a nice soft alpaca yarn and is a beautiful blue which is Ben's favorite color.

I am still a newbie knitter, so this was my first attempt at a pattern. I am really happy with how it turned out. Its a very simple stripe, but its perfect for a manly man like Ben.

The team is also off to a good start for the New Year. They had their first game back yesterday and won 4-0 against Brown University. I'm proud of our sophomore goalie for getting her first collegiate shutout. Our freshman goalie just returned from USA Hockey camp which is also a huge accomplishment. This is a huge plus for our team. At the beginning of the year, I think many people questioned how good our team would be, even with two Olympians, due to the lack of experience in goaltending. I think our goalies have really stepped up and have proven themselves which is evident by our 15-2-3 record, which includes 4 shutouts.

Finally, Ben and I are just two short days from going to Vegas. I have never been and am really excited to go. I hope it is as great as everyone says it is. Trust me, there will be lots of pictures and updating, so stay tuned.

Oh, and finally finally, I will be posting an update/race report from this past weekend's 10K on my triathlon blog (http://eliteodyssey.blogspot.com/) before we leave for our trip, so be sure to check in.