Author: Raven Alford

Raven has been a product tester and reviewer for 15+ years, working with invite-only programs (such as Amazon Vine and Highlight) and premium brands. Micro-influencer and wannabe foodie, Raven enjoys a variety of topics and interests, and loves bringing them to the public. A true child of the 80's & 90's, she loves old school gaming and fashion; and her favorite band will always be New Kids on the Block.

Categories
Entertainment

Celebrity Memoirs I Want to Read

There are dozens of articles across the web that include the “best” celebrity memoirs. This isn’t one of them. I have never been interested in celebrity memoirs, autobiographies, or biographies. I’m not sure why. I’ve not felt the need to know their personal lives or been super into celebrity gossip.  Maybe because I’ve only felt “connected” to a handful over the years and those individuals never released one? Dunno. But it seems there has been a surge the past year or so, and a few have actually caught my eye. Below are five that I am interested in… but still may or may not read.

1. Spare- Prince Harry,  Jan 2023: A prince struggles with his royal lifestyle and finding love, eventually relinquishing his title and leaving his royal family after marrying the love of his life. Sounds like a modern-day fairy tale or a rom-com movie. But fairy-tales and rom-coms don’t talk about the nitty gritty details. I don’t share the same fascination of the British monarchy that America possesses overall, but I loved Princess Diana. She was dubbed the “World’s Princess” for good reason, and I admired who she was and what she stood for. Conspiracy theories aside,
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Categories
Entertainment Pop Culture

Celebrity Trials: A Look Back

It has been over a week since the verdicts were read at the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, yet the buzz surrounding the ex-couple has barely died down. Whether you were Team Depp, Team Heard, or couldn’t give a lick, there is no denying the defamation trial against Heard garnered millions of viewers. With those millions of viewers now seeking other means of court entertainment, I decided to take a look back at other celebrity cases over the years. This is hardly the first celebrity trial to capture such an audience; below are a few more high-profile celebrity cases from our generation.
1. O.J. Simpson– On June 17, 1994, former football star O.J. Simpson disappeared for hours after he was supposed to turn himself in for the brutal slayings of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her acquaintance Ronald Goldman. Simpson then led police on a slow-moving car chase in the now infamous white Ford Bronco. The chase would culminate that evening in Simpson’s arrest in the driveway of his own home. With 95 million people viewing the car chase and Brown-Simpson and Goldman’s murders having been so grisly, the trial was bound to bring attention. Lasting eleven months
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Categories
Entertainment

Six Ridiculous and Cringeworthy Reality Dating Shows from the Early 2000’s

Reality shows are commonplace on TV today, with popular titles such as Survivor, Big Brother, and 90 Day Fiance; but before these familiar shows were the ones that started it all. The awkward and unexpected moments had viewers glued to their televisions and some were even too cringe to watch.

Brian and I are pretty big into Twitch and one of our favorite streamers Hasan Piker recently began watching a forgotten dating reality show from the early 2000s. Now, I had never heard of this particular program, but it was so fun watching on Hasan’s stream that I found myself diving deeper into the rabbit hole of reality tv shows. I had absolutely no idea that many even existed. Literally hundreds, in a plethora of genres. For time’s sake (and sanity), I am going to stick to dating shows in the early 2000s that aired for only one season and are US-based. Here is my list of the most ridiculous and cringe-worthy:

1. Playing It Straight (2004)– This is the show Hasan streamed and hoo boy- I am surprised there weren’t more shocking moments, but for 2004, it was actually pretty tame. A midwestern woman named Jackie and 10 … Read More

Categories
Entertainment

My most anticipated movies of 2022

I am not a big moviegoer or tv person; never have been, even as a kid. Before I met my husband, I had ONE tv show that I watched religiously; and even then, it took me four years after the show ended to finish the series. However, my husband and a good friend of his goes to the theater once or twice a month to see a featured new release, and I have found myself tagging along occasionally in the past months. Candyman (meh), Halloween Kills (awful), Scream (loved it), and The Batman (amazing!) to name a few. I always love watching the previews, and there were definitely a few that stood out. I have no overall genre that I am a diehard for, I just like what I like. In no particular order, these are the handful of theater releases I am actually looking forward to seeing in 2022 (apologies in advance to my hubby for crashing guys night):

The Black Phone (Blumhouse Productions, June 2022)– Based on a short story from Joe Hill’s anthology 20th Century Ghosts, this supernatural thriller follows a 13-year-old boy (Mason Thames) after being abducted and held captive by a child killer … Read More