On the left is the very sweet Elisa Noel, a Salt Lake City native/teacher/massage therapist who had driven down to Park City to take part in an elaborate pamper suite touting an upcoming hotel. Thus far, Noel had not been able to make time to see any films, though she saw and loved the Jason Ritter vehicle Good Dick when it played in Salt Lake the previous year. While administering a chakra-balacning hand massage and a "cuti cocktial" ("Someone said it smells like nature's bubblegum"), Noel discussed this festival year's somewhat diminished star quality.

ELISA: So this is for your heart chakra, and I'll put this scrub on your arms as well. For your choice of scrubs, you have sugar with lavender, or salt with ginger...

DEFAMER: We're all about sugar. Have any stars come in?

ELISA: A couple, yeah. Kevin Sorbo. And then you saw Danny [Franzese], he was just here. We've had a lot of, like, agents.

DEFAMER: Is it hard to get agents to relax? How do you get them to put the Blackberry down?

ELISA: Nobody puts them down. They all set them up here and watch. [laughs]

For Sundance attendees who cared not for free boots or fake-bakes, there was always the Pet Pad, where celebs on Main St. could come in and hug a rescue pet (swag with no carbon footprint!). The face of the Pet Pad was Dr. Karen Halligan (above right), whose mission it was to talk up pet insurance. "People don't think about it," she told us. 'Like, Andie MacDowell came down, and I said, 'I'm promoting pet insurance,' and she goes, 'pet insurance?!'

DR. KAREN: I've been a shelter vet for the last ten years and it's changed my life. I'm in negotiations for my own talk show right now, I'm on Animal Planet all the time, Dogs 101, Cats 101, the hit show Groomer Has It, which is being premiered in Moscow as we speak...

DEFAMER: The same version?

DR. KAREN: You know what's really funny? You're right, it's [dubbed]! Like, who's doing me in Russian? Or Joey Villani, who's a Jersey guy. Jai Rodriguez is the host, and he's in Russia right now promoting it. I can't wait to talk to him when he gets back to get the scoop: "Did you have some good vodka?" That's the first question!

It was Dr. Karen's first trip to Sundance, but if she has her way, it won't be the last. The eye candy alone was stunning, she says.

DR. KAREN: Celebrity people have been so sweet. And, oh my God, so many good-looking men.

DEFAMER: Non-celebrity, good-looking men?

DR. KAREN: Yes. The odds are stacked for the girls here, OK? So that's the impression I'm coming away with.

Well, apparently Opes is just as greedy as the rest of us.

Over the weekend, Oprah hit up an Emmy swag suite and - gasp! - actually took something home with her. A purple-grey Lesportsac limited edition bowling style bag designed by Stella McCartney. Really, Oprah? We would've gone for one of these cool hats, like Neal Patrick Harris did. Lookin' good, Doogie.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Oprah Winfrey stops in at Emmy swag suite? Is the economy that bad? [LAT]

After setting up shop in a hotel swag suite, Romulus of South Paradiso Designs was told by the staff that "Britney will be coming" the next day. But first, he would be visited by Alli:

"This short little brunette comes rushing in and tells me, 'anything you have out you have to give to Britney if she wants it.' So I said no, sorry, I can't do that. It took forever to set it all up. And Alli goes, "well then you have to hide whatever you're not giving away.' She didn't get it. If someone likes something, I'll give them my business card. Celebrities can get shit for free, but somebody like Britney Spears, to me, is just someone who lives in a trailer park, everything I hate about music."

"She went straight towards my $2,400 hat, the VooDoo Priest Top Hat and just put it on, along with one of my velvet jackets, just posing for all the cameras in there. When I gave her my card and told her she could come in and buy it whenever, she just pouted and tried prancing around the suite to show me how much she liked it. I still said no. She did not look happy. She wanted the jacket too, but it wasn't even close to fitting her, like a 12-inch gap away from fitting her."

"Felicity Huffman loved this sheepskin jacket and wanted it for Aspen, but didn't for a second think she should get it for free. She said she'd be 'honored to buy it' from me. And Jack White, an actual artist, comes in all the time and pays like a real customer."

"On all counts, NO. That picture made me sick to my stomach. But you know what? Maybe if she'd offered me 5 grand or something, I might've given it to her."

Oh Brit. Making people, and yourself, sick consistently for years. Keep up the good work!

"We were afraid no one was going to show up ... and we almost backed out, but it really paid off," said Cindy Lott, who was touting Xtreme Lashes eyelash extensions at another event in Beverly Hills. "There were more RSVPs because people aren't at their stylists."

"I knew the actors would still be supporting the gifting," said Susan Setz, who was showing her Wild Rose Tattoo Shirts at a gift suite in Brentwood, a neighborhood known for its high celeb quotient. "I looked at it as a wonderful opportunity." [...]

Like awards shows, gifting is a Hollywood tradition. Maybe the Golden Globe suites are proof the industry hasn't entirely shut down.

"Stars want to come and celebrate," said vendor Niels Christiansen. "They support the writers, but they still want to have fun."

Fortunately, the Guild has been silent about the continuing operation of the suites, as there could be no greater solidarity-undermining misstep than to interfere with their high-profile brethren in SAG's God-given right to collect as much freely proffered crap as their assistants can carry—there are, after all, only so many life-altering sacrifices one can be asked to make even in the name of a just cause.

[Photo: AP]

• Globes show canceled, but not the swag [Yahoo! News]

A reader was so moved by a promotional item a co-worker received for Hilary Swank courageous-white-lady- inspires-inner-city-kids drama Freedom Writers that she found her own writing voice, submitting this report about her disappointment with the shoddily constructed, pungent swag:

Someone at my office was sent this Freedom Writers promotional messenger bag today, and it was so unbelievably heinous I had to take a picture and send it in. It has all this fake graffiti on it, like a bunch of disaffected, inner city kids freedom-wrote all over it in PENCIL. "I don't trust anyone." "I hate the way this gun feels against my side" — shit like that. Shit that cries out "Thank you, Hilary Swank, for helping me get all of this off of my asthmatic, inner city-kid chest!" It's HORRIBLE! Plus, it stinks super badly, like it still smells like the creepy Chinese factory from whence it came. It came with a Freedom Writers-branded mini composition book inside and a few Freedom Writers pencils inside.

If it were possible to want to see that movie less than I already did, I now do.

Unfortunately for the theoretical Chinese sweatshop laborers who may have stitched together the bags, the uplifting scribblings are in English, depriving them of an opportunity to be empowered to sneak home those notebooks and pencils and get started on their own inspirational writing careers.