If you’re somehow still a fan of Jersey Shore, you’ll be tickled to hear that MTV is planning to have Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi climb into a ball that will then be lowered into Times Square on New Year’s Eve. If you, like most sane people, are over Jersey Shore, we’re sorry if you just felt a part of your soul die as you were reading that last sentence.

Comedian and self-proclaimed “D-lister” Kathy Griffin hosted VH1 Divas Salute the Troops which was taped for an audience of servicemen at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California, and aired last night. The ribald and unconventional comedian set the tone for the night when she joked about Bristol Palin and her supposed weight gain while competing with Dancing With The Stars. But the joke fell flat, as the military men and woman in attendance lustily booed the host for taking a shot at Sarah Palin‘s daughter.

Some Jersey Shore haters will say the show jumped the shark when it started, while others will say it should have stopped after season one.

For me, it sadly came in the middle of the final episode of season two, when Snooki appeared to inexplicably break character (we have the video evidence). It was a heart-breaking moment in a boring episode that could signal something disastrous about our favorite cast of juiced-up Jerseyans.

Regis Philbin is old. Super old. Like, “Jesus Christ was my camp counselor” old. So it’s no surprise that when Jersey Shore stars Jenni “JWoww” Farley and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi
showed up on Live with Regis & Kelly this morning, Reeg didn’t quite know what to make of them.

The Situation was eliminated on Dancing With The Stars this week, and to make matters worse, this episode of Jersey Shore features him failing miserably with a girl from “Canadia.”

Snooki makes an incest joke, Vinny gets “pot-committed” and Pauly D comes to the realization his wingman is a total douchebag.

Last night, South Park took on Jersey Shore with all of the gleeful relish you’d imagine. Typically, when the show takes on a target this easily, they try to hit it so that the obvious jokes are eventually turned into something hilariously bizarre (see also: the Paris Hilton episode). This episode was no exception as they took their portrayal of Snooki to the extreme, depicting her as a terrifying, orange monster stalking the streets of South Park in search of “smoosh smoosh.”

Well this episode of Jersey Shore didn’t gain The Situation any Dancing With The Stars votes. Instead, The Situation was exposed as erratic and jealous, and erratically jealous. Also very worn-out-baseball-glove-looking.

Recap slideshow is after the jump (complete with reference to Parker Spitzer)!

Howie Hawkins, a member of the Green Party, probably won’t be elected Governor of New York in November. Hawkins shouldn’t be too broken up about his impending loss, though—in fact, based on comments he made to David Freedlander of the New York Observer, maybe he should be considering a second career as a comedian.

For the second time in a row, Angelina, aka the Staten Island Dump aka Trash Bags, left Jersey Shore before the season could come to a close. We can thank The Situation for being a jerk to her, Snooki for physically fighting her, Vinny for smushing and running and much more.

We also became keenly aware of the soon-to-be-sweeping-the-nation “It’s T-Shirt Time” song. Let’s recap.

Lawrence O’Donnell‘s new MSNBC show, The Last Word, premieres tonight at 10pmET, and he’s appearing all over the network today to promote it.

With Education Nation as the main topic, O’Donnell successfully took Joe Scarborough‘s joke on Morning Joe about Snooki and connected it to our education system.

On last night’s pre-VMAs episode of Jersey Shore, we got to know the person who is turning into one of the stars of season 2 – sweet, momma’s boy Vinny.

His family came to visit, and it was fun for everyone to eat a big meal and spend QT with the fam. But Vinny’s true nature was revealed in two very different interactions with women.

Episode seven of Jersey Shore was sponsored by Fossil watches, Staten Island and true love.

No but seriously, Snooki smushed, Sammi and Jwoww fought, Vinny smushed, Ronnie and Sammi made up, Angelina smushed Vinny and Pauly D and The Situation were the voices of reason.

Earlier today, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi plead guilty to disturbing the peace in a New Jersey courthouse after being arrested this past July while wandering around Seaside Heights clearly intoxicated. TMZ got footage of Judge Damian Murray’s ruling, in which he said she seemed like a “Lindsay Lohan wannabe.” He also asked a question all reality show contestants should ask themselves: whether it’s “worth trading your dignity for a paycheck.”

The epic sixth episode of Jersey Shore was a Seaside Heights roller-coaster filled with sex and violence, food and drink (and a tranny situation).

The Situation, who was the breakout star of season one, will now incomprehensibly be on Dancing With The Stars and has a nickname for his nickname (“Sitch”), was mostly a bit player this year. Until his breakout performance last night – which he summed up with a perfect analogy about his philosophy on life.

Jersey Shore‘s fifth episode began with a 10-second scene featuring Jwoww and her breasts. She’s staring at herself in the mirror, maneuvering her fake mammaries when a disapproving glare comes across her usually blank face.

They aren’t perky enough apparently, or large enough, or something. Saying more in that look than if she attempted to formulate a sentence to describe her emotion at the time, we enter episode five. Let’s recap the shitshow.

Before this season we speculated that the only way it was possible for Jersey Shore to remain great is if the cast remained self-aware. After four episodes, the stars of season two seem to be the ones who still aren’t playing for the cameras.

Ronnie and Sammi are in Guido Guiding Light and Angelina‘s repulsiveness has kept her at the forefront – this week displaying this repulsiveness quite literally by farting in Snooki‘s face. With that in mind, let’s recap episode four (in slideshow-form).

Sleep with one eye open Sammi! Ronnie is creeping and you think he just wants to smush you. This is not, sadly, the case, Sweetheart.

We need to talk about this, and other Situations. But really, what’s the deal with this Ronnie character?

The latest in awkward McCain-Snooki interactions came yesterday afternoon on KMLE radio in Phoenix when the Arizona Senator weighed in on Snooki’s recent arrest for disorderly conduct. Even though Snooki is unlikely to face any jail time for her drunken tirade against the cops, Sen. McCain rose to her defense.

A couple months ago, we wrote about Taiwanese news organization NMA News and I theorized that they were actively courting traffic from American blogs with western-centric videos. Boy, was I right. Not only did they create a “World Edition” Twitter account and start tweeting at different bloggers (Including yours truly. Hey, guys!) they soon began subtitling their videos in English as well. While I haven’t written a post about everything they’ve done (you can follow their Twitter for that), I had to link to this short little gem featuring everyone’s favorite ex-flight attendant, Steven Slater! Man, these guys are fast.

We live in a country now where someone named Jwoww can tell five million people on TV about a certain guy from Long Island who goes by the name Jay 420, and you can then find out exactly what Jay 420 thinks of the mention. And also – he goes by Dr. Jay 420…he didn’t go through years of 420 school to have you drop the Dr.

Also this week we learned about the IFF (not to be confused with the GFA) and how to have a “Snooki Night.”

We see more and more reality shows now than ever, and that means more and more reality “stars.” But which reality TV stars have become actually famous? Here’s our list of the top 10.

Note: to make the list, you had to get your start on a reality show that you technically couldn’t get famous for anyway – American Idol or Project Runway contestants, for example, don’t make the cut.

We know most of our loyal readers probably had trouble sleeping last night without knowing the fate of tiny drunken jailbird Snooki, who was arrested in Seaside Heights, NJ yesterday afternoon while filming the third season of Jersey Shore. Well, you can all conclude the candlelight vigils and hunger strikes: Snooks is roaming free on the boardwalk, and didn’t have to stay the night.

Breaking news (or a Friday in the middle of the summer’s version of breaking news)! Snooki AKA Nicole Polizzi AKA the inspiration costume contest winners at “Remember the Aughts” costume parties for years to come, has been arrested. While details of the arrest are still slim, we can only presume that the MTV star has finally been brought to justice for stealing America’s heart.

Jersey Shore is back, and the crew of non-Jerseyites have moved south to Miami, bitch (that will happen all season).

Yesterday we worried if self-awareness would pervade the show, and the fact that the four biggest stars (Jwoww, Snooki, The Situation and Pauly D) were barely involved in the episode one plot proved it true so far. But the crew still made a big mess, so all was forgiven.

We’ve reached a point in our reality TV consumption where we no longer need to actually believe it is real – the suspension of disbelief for shows like The Hills or Real Housewives is as accepted as in professional wrestling.

But what separated MTV’s Jersey Shore when it beat the beat onto the scene in December was how fantastically real it was. As we await the second season premiere tonight, let’s hope this hasn’t changed.