Another tiresome, spotlight hugging celebrity has passed from the glow of the paparazzi flashbulb into the fray of the forgotten. Well, maybe, a man can dream.

Jon Gosselin, one of the two soul-sucking parents of the TLC reality show 'Jon & Kate Plus 8,' has settled his lawsuit with TLC for backing out of his contract for his reality show.

The news gets even better. Since Jon is still under contract for the network, he can't return to television anytime soon. Looks like Santa got my letter after all.

It always amuses me when reality star and pop celebrities write and release books for their fans. They don't really strike me as big readers.

Kate Gosselin, the former star of 'Jon & Kate Plus 8' and tabloid magazines at a grocery store near you, has released her own book titled 'I Just Want You to Know.' Funny, I don't know anyone who wanted to know in the first place.

The book was published by Zondervan, a Christian book publisher, so the book not only features her accounts of what went on behind the scenes, but also things such as prayers taken from her own journal. Prayers, those would have come in handy when her show was on the air.

It's too easy to call Jon and Kate Plus 8 a train wreck and leave it at that.

If ever there was a cautionary tale about the perils of easy fame, this is it. In the course of a year, we watched Jon and Kate
go from a benignly dysfunctional reality TV family to a textbook case of what happens to "normal" people under the glare of TV lights. The Gosselins seemed to lose themselves completely in the glare of the spotlight and jettisoned their values and morals for more camera time. Calling their story a "train wreck" doesn't even begin to surmise the dissolution of a family and the viewing public's fascination with its implosion.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus because he knows exactly what every self-respecting television watcher wants for Christmas: a finalized Jon and Kate Gosselin divorce.

Despite claims from attorneys that the divorce wouldn't be final until next month, court records show that the reality show couple's papers officially went through on Friday.

So want to know who got the house and who got the kids? Here's an update for ya: WHO CARES?!? The couple have no mind-grating show, no equally mind-grating presence on so-called news shows and now no quadruply mind-grating marriage to tempt the press with at every corner. It's finally over ... right?

Call it a sign of a successful show or the end of an unmitigated disaster, but the reign of Jon & Kate is officially over and joy has replaced tyranny in the universe.

In short, TLC's newest reality hit Cake Boss has officially taken over the coveted 9 p.m. slot on Mondays vacated by Satan's favorite show, Jon & Kate Plus 8.

For those of you who have not left your cave in the last month, Jon & Kate officially left the airwaves last Monday thereby stitching the hole that its pure evilness created in the annals of time and space and staving off the unholy apocalypse. And in case your wondering, no, I never liked the show.

Even if you've never seen a single episode of the TLC mega-hit Jon & Kate Plus 8, chances are you've been hearing a lot about it lately. Specifically, the rumors of infidelities, open marriage contracts, and staying together not for the kids, but for the cameras. One should always take tabloid stories with a grain (or a pound) of salt, but when the issues make their way onto the actual show? Perhaps there is something to them.

TLC just released a two-minute clip of the May 25 season premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8 (video also after the jump), and, well, it's awkward, to say the least. One of the hallmarks of the show is that Jon and Kate always squeeze onto a love seat together to do their interviews. In the season premiere, however, each one is sitting alone on the couch. Gone is the playful banter; in its place is a woman who looks as though she's spending every ounce of her energy trying not to scream, and a man who just looks beaten down by life. It's not exactly the family-friendly entertainment viewers are used to.