1. Young Samantha Busch just wanted to go on a holiday to the Grand Canyon with her boyfriend. But her overprotective mother wouldn’t stop warning her about falling off a cliff or being blown off while hiking.
So Samantha decided to send the below photo to her mother… just to freak her out a little bit. We’re guessing it worked:

Samatha posted the photo on Reddit with this caption:“Mom was worried about my trip to the Grand Canyon, I sent her this picture”
Apparently Samantha and her boyfriend found a ledge to stand on and angled the camera so that it looked like she was about to fall off, into the canyon.
The picture has since gone viral and has even spurned a whole lot of copycat images from world travellers.
But did Samantha’s mother forgive her? “She’s fine. She wasn’t even angry. She was just relieved upset,” Samantha said.
2. Some bad news for any Coldplay fans – at a gig in Brisbane last week, the band has announced that they are taking a three year break.
Singer Chris Martin told the audience that the group wanted to make the performance their best ever…because “this is the last big show for three years or so,” he said. “I don’t want to stop,” he told a crowd of shocked fans.
His statement was *technically* untrue – the band has a bunch of gigs lined up before a New Year’s Eve show with Jay Z – but won’t be planning any live shows after that (news, which will devastate everyone who went to the band’s recent gigs in Oz).
3. This might just be the coolest song you will hear today.
4. The Biggest Loser – explosive claims of dangerous weight loss practices.
Former host Ajay Rochester got into a social media skirmish with former contestant Adro Sarnelli – the winner of the very first series – on her website. It was prompted by Adro attacking overweight people on a forum for previous contestants of Biggest Loser. There are quite a few personal insults between the two but the most illuminating bit of information is what Ajay has alleged about the WAY contestants on the popular Channel 10 reality show lose such massive amounts of weight so quickly during the course of filming. In her open letter to Adro on her Facebook page, Ajay wrote:
It’s funny, I REMEMBER how you got back into Biggest Loser to make it to the final four.
Adro, if you remember, you were eliminated by the game and fellow contestants but you threatened the producers with a court case and all sorts of things, which in the first year of a show, a costly court case and scandal was not what they wanted or needed to make the show a success.
You forced them into giving you another chance, threatening to make trouble for them and so they rewrote the series and gave you a second chance, reluctantly.
I remember how you came to the show, a lost, broken, desperate, powerless father unable to save your own life and willing to do anything to fix it, putting your life in the hands of others, a TV show, trusting they would change your life FOR you. I also remember how you presented yourself at your final weigh in (behind closed doors and a few days before filming so contestants had time to recover and look healthy)…..you were starving, pale, had shallow breathing, low blood pressure, cracked lips and you were unable to stand on your own two feet – hardly a great advertisement for healthy weight loss….. all the contestants begged me to ask the producers to have you drug tested.
I took that request to the producers and was told they didn’t want to know the truth, they just wanted a good winner and told me to shut up and go away. This was one of the many problems I faced in the job I became known for being difficult in…….because I spoke up when I felt it was wrong or that we were being deceitful. I refused to be the face of their online diet club, I refused to sell their shakes and diet bars, I complained when someone who went on to win was living off 200 calories a week, I complained when I had to participate in a cover up for the contestant (who also went on to win) who drank bottles and bottles of tea tree oil (and whose relative was caught smuggling more in) to lose gross amounts of weight and more…..it made me NO friends, but I refused to drink or even sell the Kool Aid.
For years now, many health professionals have expressed concern about the crash diet tactics promoted on the show and the way contestants are incentivised to lose vast amounts of weight over a short period of time. Channel Ten is yet to respond to Ajay’s claims.
5. An ENGAGEMENT. A WEDDING. And a PREGNANCY.
Three bits of local happy news. Australian model Erin McNaught is engaged to music producer Example (real name Elliot Gleave). Apparently, Elliot proposed to Erin in Brisbane, while the couple were visiting her family.
Flick through our gallery of other celebrities who have recently announced engagements:

Ricki-Lee Coulter is engaged to Richard Harrison
Designer Rachel Gilbert married Tom Williams over the weekend, at Kincoppal Rose Bay. Gilbert wore a strapless self-designed organza gown and her bridesmaids were dressed in long silver gowns. The reception was held at Catalina.
See THE dress (and other recent celebrity weddings) in the gallery below:

Rachael Finch married Michael Miziner
And X-Factor judge Natalie Basingthwaite has confirmed she is pregnant with her second child due in June next year. Congrats to all three couples.

Fergie and Josh Duhamel
7. While Australia has adopted Halloween as a new(ish) tradition from the US, we’re yet to get into Thanksgiving. But we can still appreciate the effort that everyone’s making in the States, what with the turkeys and the pumpkin pies… Sorry, why don’t we celebrate this holiday? Click through the gallery to see how celebs such as Oprah, Kanye West and Jessica Alba celebrated Thanksgiving.
(Warning: Prepare yourself to experience food envy.)

The Kardashians certainly go all out at Thanksgiving. There's no keeping up with the Kardashians.
9. Would you let HIM wear it? First men are being encouraged to wax and laser the hair off their chests. Now they’re being sold hairy ties. WTF. Zazzle is selling a rather interesting “Perfect Hairy Chest and Stomach Tie”. It’s for the man who is less than satisfied with the amount of hair he has on his chest. Oh, and it comes with built-in abs. Bonus! Would you want your significant other to wear one? They’re only $34…

Versus Versace and J.W. Anderson's latest collaboration
Thanks to Hurricane Vanessa.









Comments
14 Comments so far
USA 2009. Took the family out to Vegas after a week at Disneyland. Spent a day out at the GRAND CANYON doing the helicopter ride, the boat trip etc. We stopped for lunch at a Native American (Indian) cafe on the edge of the canyon (if you’ve been there, you know the place!). After lunch, we went for a walk along the edge of the canyon, tightly holding the kids, as it’s a pretty scary place. We stopped and took a quick family photo and right after we took the shot, my 8 year old son made a run for the edge. My heart stopped. My son was now running along the rim of the Grand Canyon and jumping across crevices in the edge. I knew if I called out to him to come back, like any 8 year old, he would run the other way, right over the side! I quickly called out “Mate, would you like some of my Coke?” he isn’t allowed to have Coke, so he was back by my side in a shot, where my wife grabbed hold of him again (and for the rest of our holiday!). I went over and had a look where he was jumping over the crevices and you could see straight down for about a mile, just like in the Road Runner cartoons. Apparently on average, one CHILD falls over the side of the Grand Canyon every year.
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Loosing 100kg in a couple of months is dangerous? You could have knocked me over with a feather.
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I went to a Thanksgiving lunch on Saturday. My friend is an expat American and she throws a beautiful luncheon every year. We also went to her house for Halloween this year, the kids absolutely loved it. As for Thanksgiving, it was gorgeous. A day just to say what we are grateful for in our lives, no gifts, no expectations – just good food and good conversation.
Oooh, one interesting thing on the menu though. Imagine this – sweet potato mashed with butter and brown sugar, then put back in the oven with marshmallows on top until melted. Looked awful, tasted surprisingly okay. Not sure if I’d do it again though. Did make me wonder who was the first person to think ‘hey let’s put sugary marshmallows on our vegetables’.
So Thanksgiving and Halloween celebrations in Australia is no different from Aussies celebrating Australia Day or Anzac Day overseas. If a few expats want to continue their traditions in their new homeland why not join in and celebrate with them
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The bit about a contestant drinking “bottles and bottles” of tea tree oil is more or less impossible. The LD50 of tea tree oil – the dosage at which 50% of the rats who swallowed it died – varies depending on the test, but 2.6ml per kilo of bodyweight was the highest (ie safest) figure I’ve found. For a 100kg contestant, this means swallowing 260ml of it would have a 50% chance of killing them. (And it tastes so vile I doubt anyone would be able to keep a quarter of that down.) This is why tea tree oil is in childproof caps with Poison warnings on the label.
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I had a friend who was a contestant in “The Biggest Loser”. I can vouch for what Ajay reported – the show is dangerous, and promotes very poor health behaviours. Once my friend left the show, she became obsessed with weight and thinness. To the point where she vomitted the food she ingested, took laxatives and diuretics, spent hours in saunas and was fanatical (obsessive) about calories (food), and energy expenditure (exercise/vomit/fluid). It was incredible – she had changed completely. She always had a defence when I prompted her about these poor habits: “we did this on the show – it’s fine, it’s normal – all overweight people do this to manage their weight”. Then I found out, as I met others who were on the show, that my friend’s habits were not in isolation. I met 3 other female contestants who all indulged in the same habits. Bulimia Nervosa. And they could all justify their actions, because the show did not stop them from doing these things.
In the end, I couldn’t be friends with her anymore. She became an eating disordered person who was in dire need of help, but tunnel vision about her difficulties. The show justified and encouraged these behaviours, and I have never watched another episode since.
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I have heard from folks in the know that the contestants are locked in the house for a few days before filming and are actively encouraged to ‘eat up the junk’ in an effort to fatten them even more and get the big ‘cry’ shots when they weigh in days later. It also sets them up to lose quickly. Not an ideal way to make people healthy!
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I know there is some hardcore stuff that goes on in the Biggest Loser training camp, but I find it difficult to believe someone like Michelle Bridges would be involved in something like contestants eating only 200 calories per day.
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The entire Biggest Loser premise is SO unhealthy…. and creepy.
The way they make obese people run around on the first day instead of easing them in, I’m surprised they haven’t suffered heart attacks.
And the demoralising ‘temptation’ scenarios they go through where they can find immunity by eating cupcakes… It’s like a sick string of experiments on desperate human beings.
And tea tree oil?! WTF?!
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The tea tree oil bit is almost impossible. See my post above for details, but tests on rats suggests that swallowing 260ml (or less, depending on the test you refer to) has a 50% chance of killing them.
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Why would we adopt an American festival? It would be like them adopting our Australia Day holiday – meaningless!
And Halloween is a Scottish festival adopted and blown way out of proportion by the Americans.
Rant over
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I found Ajay’s comments so interesting – I’m such a reality TV geek and always know there’s more than meets the eye but thanks to contracts we never hear it. Juicy!
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My friends and I are having Thanksgiving tonight just cos we wanted to. I’m excited!
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I was at Coldplay in Brisbane last week and I didn’t really think anything of the comment – it’s basically the cycle they go through. Write album, album release, big world tour, repeat. Hardly “a break”.
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I’ve always liked the concept of Thanksgiving: getting together with your family, eating a nice meal, being thankful and NOT GIVING PRESENTS. We need more food-based holidays in this country
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