A: In a word? NO.

But the Jersey Shore bitches are trying really, really hard in their shoot for YRB, which stars like Paris Hilton and Khloe Kardashian have graced the cover of. Yes indeedy, they’re truly giving it the old college try, whatever the eff that means.

Don’t get me wrong: they all look good. All of them, seriously. Even the trollish one who normally makes Snooki look like a frigging tall, willowy beauty pageant winner. It’s amazing, really.

Anyway. I’m going to leave this one up to you guys – the Jersey Shore gals: can you dress ‘em up and make them OK to look at for a few minutes without breaking out into hives and herpes-by-osmosis?

Photos courtesy of TooFab

Nicole Polizzi is already a New York Times bestselling author, but she hasn’t quite finished, um, “smushing” the cultural zeitgeist, so to speak.

The ebullient munchkin recently announced her new line of “beach footwear” and flip-flops, primed to launch this very holiday season. Which is perfect! I always start shopping for open-toed platform wedges in December.

No word yet on how much Snooki Enterprises LLC will charge for those pink sequined pickle sandals, but Polizzi promises footwear at every price point, ranging from $15 to $50.

Then again, if you love pickles as much as Snooki does, just follow her lead and duct-tape a Vlasic jar underneath each foot. You know, like Moon Shoes. What.

This poor girl. Our little Snooki, famous for her drinking problem and her absurdity, thinks she’s akin to Lady Gaga, a woman more powerful than Oprah.  Bless her heart:

“I’m definitely like my own style, like leopard print, like total guidette.  Just like everybody loves Gaga. Why does everybody love Gaga?  Because she’s herself and she’s not trying to be anybody but her. So I think, you know, I’m kinda like Gaga.”

Snooki, honey child, when I go to the bars in the bad part of town, I don’t see ladies in penis shoes and meat clothes. However, I do see tons of girls who have shoved themselves into too-tight dresses and are probably in the process of dying from hairspray fumes. Guess which category you fall under, sister?

Another interesting fact:  Snooki said that if she was asked to work full-time on WWE, she’d say yes.  This girl is such a gift.

A few weeks ago, we ran a small blurb in one of the link posts claiming that Snooki lost a couple of pounds. And she did, really. Judging by old pictures, Snooki probably lost around fifteen pounds. The story came and went through the Jersey Shore filter that I try to hard to maintain on this site, and I tried to vow not to talk about her after that.

However? It seems that Snooki’s trying to ride this one out as long as she can. She just spoke to People magazine this past week and had a lot to say:

Polizzi told PEOPLE she was working with a trainer and trying to eat healthy foods. She has also been experimenting with Zumba, a dance class, and even showed off her gymnastics skills at WWE Raw.

“I definitely want to get in shape and be healthy again,” the reality star, 23, said. “But it’s really hard to eat good when you’re traveling because you see fast food – and you want to go to this restaurant and that restaurant.”

“[I have] egg whites in the morning and chicken and salads,” she said. “And if you do drink, it’s gotta be clear liquors.”  Now, instead of throwing back Long Island Iced Teas or margaritas (“Which are, like, a million calories,” she notes), Snooki’s new drink of choice is a lighter option: vodka with seltzer water.

“[For Jersey Shore's upcoming season] All we’re gonna eat is pasta,” she said. “I’m very, very scared – drinking wine and having spaghetti all day [would] throw me off course.”

The only thing that would throw me off course about you, Snooki, is if I woke up one day to a world where you weren’t a fight-picking pig with a warthog face, but hey.  Congrats on the weight loss thing!  Getting healthy is a good, mature thing to do, so maybe you could also put down the seventy-six adult beverages that you consume in a day, too.  … But then you wouldn’t have much of a career, now, would you, girl?

Snooki picked up a cool $32,000 for doing a speaking engagement at New Jersey’s Rutgers University this week, and of course people are freaking out about it and trying to deny the woman the money she earned. The hubbub is over two things: 1) Snooki got paid two grand more than Toni Morrison will when she speaks to a packed stadium at the school’s commencement in May, 2) Rutgers University is technically a state school, so people are trying to angle this like the school spent state money on this appearance.

The school’s official statement about Snooki’s speech and the appearance fee was released yesterday. The Rutgers programming association says they “made the decision to invite Snooki and her comedy act to the campus based on input from students. No state funds or tuition money are used for these events. The university does not censor the speakers students choose to invite to campus.”

I’m of the opinion that the most offensive part of this story is that they called Snooki’s speech a “comedy act,” not that she’s making that much money for meeting the demands of people who want to see her live. It’s so great how we do this to the people we make famous, guys. We pay them tons of attention and then say, “What are you doing, acting famous? All we did is make you one of the biggest TV stars out there and put you on the cover of magazines and buy your book. Why would you think you can actually, like, make money for this stuff?”

We made Snooki happen. We’re all a part of this. Let’s not go after Rutgers or the Snookster because we’re unhappy with the state of our cultural climate.

This girl.  Honestly.  To me, Snooki is hot like Charlie Sheen right now, except, you know, without death threats.  And in this month’s issue of Rolling Stone, Snooki pops out to let the world know that she’s never going to go away.  Sorry about that, or, depending on your outlook, hooray!

From Rolling Stone:

On watching Jersey Shore: “If I do something stupid, which is pretty much the whole time, I hate it,” she says. “I just hate it. Obviously, they’re only going to put the good stuff in, and the good stuff is us drunk, so all I’m seeing is me drunk and falling down. That’s how I am when I party, but some of the stuff I do is, like, ‘Really, Nicole?’ I look like a freakin’ alcoholic. I’m like, ‘You’re sweating, your makeup is running, you look gross.’ I just look like shit.”

On being filmed constantly: “It messes with your head,” Polizzi says. “That’s why we go crazy. That’s why we fight with each other. That’s why we drink. We’re living in a house for two months with that shit. We can’t have cellphones, TV, radio or the Internet. If the president died, we’d have no idea. There’s no normalcy. It’s just like prison, with cameras.”

On sex on the Jersey Shore: “The only person I’ve had sex with on Jersey Shore is my boyfriend,” she says. “The guys you see me bring home, we’re only cuddling and making out like any other person would do, but we’re on camera and the whole world’s seeing it, and it does look like I’m having sex.”

On her future: “When Jersey Shore ends I’m going to do more spinoffs,” she says. “If MTV doesn’t want them, another network will be, like, ‘What does Snooki do now?’ or ‘Snooki’s getting married!’ What I’d like is to turn out like Jessica Simpson, with her whole brand. She makes millions…I’m trying to build an empire, because after this I can’t get a normal job. I mean, how do I go and sit behind a desk?”

She has a point with that last one there, but it’s just weird to see anyone say that she wants to turn out like Jessica Simpson, isn’t it?