While it's true we've rarely seen Harvard's Woman of the Year Paris Hilton far from at least one member of her four-legged menagerie, had you asked us to guess just how many animals co-exist with her behind the walls of her gated estate, we would have probably thrown out a number like a half-dozen: a chihuahua, a kinkajou, a billy goat, couple ducks, maybe an emu for good measure. Never, however, in our wildest, animal-exploiting, poopie-bedsheet dreams, did the following occur to us:

On February 8, 2007, a devastated Defamer was glued to CNN, following Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the rest of AnnaDeath 360° team as they offered breathless updates on the not-entirely-shocking (yet still pretty traumatic) loss of Anna Nicole Smith. And yet here we are, a full year later, and Hollywood seems doomed to repeat its trainwreck-glamorizing mistakes. Meanwhile, Smith's legacy carries on via the creepy gentleman-callers who dotted the love polygon that defined much of her life. Larry Birkhead, we well know through a series of soul-deadening The Insider exclusives, has been adjusting to life with his money-pooping paternity jackpot, most recently having plopped the toddler on a patch of grass he assured us was Anna Nicole's resting place, and successfully baby-wrangled his daughter into saying the word "mama" for their cameras.

Apparently, network partner ABC is succumbing to the same "Which show are we going to put on?" panic as the Academy, as this promo teasing a "Oscar's Best 'Fuck You' Moments" montage that would run during a clip-heavy, strike-crippled telecast has surfaced on the YouTubes. We hope it's testing well; even if the WGA contract dispute is resolved in time to save the program, the normal awards ceremony could definitely be livened up by revisiting the infamous "It's about fucking time, it's been ten goddamn years since Pretty Woman, you ignorant shit-for-brains voters!" tirade Julia Roberts unleashed following her 2001 Best Actress win for Erin Brockovich.

We can't remember the last time we actually bought a hard copy of Rolling Stone. But with all the buzz surrounding this issue's Britney Spears cover story, we found ourselves dashing to the newsstand first thing this morning and tearing through the issue as we drank our morning coffee. Needless to say, the piece does not disappoint. What follows are some of our favorite slices from Vanessa Grigoriadis' fascinating look of the person she describes as having "the most public downfall of any star in history."

Following the magical transformation of longtime rep Risa Shapiro from agent to manager (the ceremony, we're told, involves drinking the still-warm blood of a freshly slain mailroom clerk), Jennifer Connelly has signed with CAA, having been vulnerable just long enough for the Creative Artists' tractor beams to pull her from her former agency's nearby Century City headquarters and into the gaping maw of the Death Star. While we're sure that now-manager Shapiro's first order of business was making the transition as painless as possible for the actress, we're sure that the decision was still at least a little agonizing, particularly the part where Connelly was forced to choose which of her adorable children to turn over to CAA as career-boosting collateral, ensuring that the new client will think twice about abandoning the relationship once their honeymoon period wears off. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

The cold-cocking of a minor celebrity outside a swanky Hollywood nightclub is hardly an uncommon experience, yet every time you see one—and thanks to TMZ's sleep-deprived video stormtroopers you are about to—it's as if you're experiencing the exhilarating adrenalin rush for the very first time.

Shockingly, despite yesterday's dramatic proclamation by former Disney Head Mouse in Charge Michael Eisner that the writers strike is over, the WGA has yet to order the mass disposal of its picket signs and send everyone back to work, stubbornly insisting on taking some time to review the actual language in the proposed deal and present it to its members tomorrow night at its planned general meeting. (But if you're looking for a positive sign that everyone's Cautious Optimism could soon be rewarded, Saturday's latest Scribeapalooza will feature a performance by Hannah Montana instead of the slightly more militant Rage Against the Machine.) So when maybe/possibly/if the numbers look right could the strike potentially be called off? United Hollywood, the Guild's unofficial voice of the past three months, offers some (theoretical) timelines:

· On last night's Late Show, Dave and Vince Vaughn hopped into the Career Wayback machine and revisited the time Vince nearly got his ass kicked by a steroid-enhanced Peter Billingsley. An after-school special classic!
· Amy Winehouse will miss the Grammys because she been denied a U.S. visa; the Embassy fears she might attempt to use her bloodstream to smuggle enough drugs into L.A. to kill everyone in the Staples Center. [rimshot]
· Wisely, John Mayer knows that all bloggers must be allowed no closer than 30 feet to him, even on supposedly safe cruise ships.
· Hey, unicorn! [via our favorite unicorn pusher]

Larry Birkhead and integrity go together like peanut butter and mayonnaise. While we have never held him in anything even remoting approaching regard, we think that this clip might one day go down as his lowest moment. That goes for those creeps over at The Insider, too. This clip of Birkhead trotting out Dannielynn to the Bahamian gravesite where her mother is buried repulses us on more levels than we care to count. But we'll try.

Just a few weeks after announcing the next James Bond movie would be called Quantum of Solace (a title that, for us at least, evokes Stephen Hawking staring wistfully out a Cambridge library window more than it does tuxedos and Walther PPKs), producers have now released the film's teaser poster.

We thought going from number-one on Charlie Sheen's speed dial to laundromat owner was bad, but Heidi Fleiss redefined the word by getting herself arrested in Nevada today. Never one to shy away from excess, the former madam had not one but two controlled substances in her possession when the cops pulled her over. But far more disturbing than the arrest is the current state of Heidi's face, on full display in her booking photo. We'd noticed she'd slipped well into the Awful Plastic Surgery archives a few years ago, but we hope the officers send her to a surgery addiction shrink instead of jail; there's enough lip on Fleiss to award at least three other inmates with brand new collagen treatments. [TMZ]

· Music round-up: Super Furry Animals at Amoeba; Macy Gray at the Hotel Café; James Blunt at the Wiltern;The Vacation at the Viper Room.
· Filter magazine hosts another one of its bi-monthly Big Time parties at the Hammer Museum (late hours, DJ's, etc), with tonight's event offering a screening of Chicago 10, which uses "archival footage, animation, and music to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention."
· At Book Soup, David Rieff signs Swimming in a Sea of Death, his memoir about the passing of his mother, Susan Sontag.

Remember that little tidbit about Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears that the The NY Daily News declared just yesterday to be "too vulgar" to print? Well, as everyone who wrote us this week to complain about our Sarah Silverman Is Fucking Matt Damon headline will attest, we're not above (or below) getting our occasional vulgar on. While the tale of Britney and Justin tale pales in comparison to the legend of the Butterscotch Stallion, we'll at least do you the service of burying the fingerlickin' details after the jump.

Defying both the media blackout and the current spirit of Cautious Optimism keeping the industry from throwing a premature Everybody's Going Back to Work! Parade on Hollywood Boulevard before a new WGA contract is signed, former Disney boss and current trading-card magnate Michael Eisner declared an end to the writers strike earlier this afternoon on CNBC's Fast Money:

LA Weekly infiltrates the dark underworld of the illegal bacon-wrapped-hot dog trade, and the results are nothing less than shocking, with even members of the city's Drunken Snack Vice Squad admitting they are virtually powerless against this potent street dog's addictive properties: '"They're tasty,' says Andy Smith of the LAPD's downtown Central Division." [LA Weekly]

Though still plagued by (an ever-diminishing) uncertainty about whether they'll be executing their full Hollywood's Biggest Night™ vision or putting on their picket-line-crippled Reading Some Names N' Watching Montages Writers Strike Contingency Spectacular in two Sundays, the Academy has no choice but to make all the customary stops on this year's pothole-riddled Road to Oscar. Having just whet the awards-obsessed public's appetite by revealing the closely guarded kobe-slider secrets of Wolfgang Puck's Governors Ball menu, it was time yesterday to give the media a sneak peak at this year's exceedingly ambitious, Roy Christopher-designed $400 million Kodak Theatre set.

While most Hollywood pretty boys would likely take out insurance against body hair if they could, furry Welsh rabbit Tom Jones has instead embraced his pelt, insuring it to the tune £3.5million ($6.8 million), reports The Sun. While it seems as though his shiny, healthy coat was in little danger, coming too close to an open flame could instantly send the money-making man-carpet up in flames, inevitably leading to plummeting ticket sales for the singer when horrified fans discover a nude torso peeking out from his open shirt like something out of their worst Hugh Grant nightmares. [The Sun]

We'd like to begin this post by emphatically stating that getting your car broken into SUCKS. We have been there, it is awful, and we genuinely empathize with Katherine Heigl and her emasculated husband Joshua during this time of need. But, having gotten that out of the way, we'd like to point out a few of the more absurd things about this clip. First and foremost, we'll begin with TMZ's editorial decision to set up a clip about a car being burgled by using a scene from ... wait for it ... The Great Muppet Caper!

Never afraid to transparently play out his personal fantasies on the the big screen (but in fairness, isn't that why everyone gets into filmmaking?), Woody Allen has reportedly filled his upcoming Vicky Cristina Barcelona with all the Scarlett-on-Penelope and Scarlett-on-Penelope-on-Javier action his randy septuagenarian heart can handle: "'[The "steamy" lesbian sex scene] is also extremely erotic. People will be blown away and even shocked. Penelope [Cruz] and Scarlett [Johansson] go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and it will leave the audience gasping.' The women later have a threesome with Javier Bardem (below), who plays Cruz's husband." The brief item makes no mention about whether or not Bardem's character is a hyperverbal artist who tends to stammer while working through his neuroses. [Page Six' Photos: WireImage]

Why would Marc Jacobs personally invite K. Fed to his impossible-to-get-into show tomorrow night? Because he's the cleverest fame-whore of them all, that's why! With Britney making more headlines than ever but, um, unavailable for public appearances at the moment, Marc knows something the other designers don't: the sheer presence of Kevin Federline will catapault his name into the headlines during what has been an unusually slow Fashion Week. The kicker? The appearance happens on the same day as, you guessed it, Britney 's bombshell profile in Rolling Stone hits newsstands!