• Jennifer Aniston's publicist denies Us Weekly's report that Aniston and Vince Vaughn are engaged, but he's made a lot of false denials before. Wait, does this suggest that publicists are merely paid liars? No. Can't be. [Us Weekly]
• Maxim's girl of the day: Floyd Landis. Ain't she a looker? [Maxim]
• New Observer owner Jared Kushner puts in 20-hour days. Doing what? Marveling at his fortune? Showing off how freakishly tall he is? [OAN]
• Old man Larry King drives like...an old man. [TMZ]
• After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams falls off the wagon and into rehab. It's the circle of celebrity life. [AP]
• Pity the Harvard freshmen who get Kaavya Viswanathan as their student advisor. Though she surely could offer guidance on how to get that creative writing assignment quickly completed. [IANS]
• NB to beauty bloggers: do NOT trust Allure. They will take your words regarding your favorite mascara, and they will destroy those words. No respect. [Beauty Addict]
• Is E! gossip Ted Casablancas getting the Star Jones treatment? We hope not, 'cause Giuliana certainly isn't any Barbara Walters. [Media Mob]
• Mel Gibson loves the girls in Philly. A little too much, perhaps. [PhillyNews]
• PowerHouse Books starts a magazine featuring content from PowerHouse books, creating an "indie media clusterfuck." Ooh, the clusterfucking means they're mainstream now. Congrats. [Animal]
• Our Los Angeles brother Defamer imagines the TomKat-n-Suri photoshoot for Vanity Fair. Chilling. [Defamer]
• Contrary to popular belief, keeping kosher does NOT protect you from tapeworms. [NYT]

• Bono buys into Forbes, filling the "Sanctimonious Media Mogul Twat" position recently vacated by Ted Turner. [NYT]
• Dishy Jared Kushner wants to do things that are "exciting and respectable." Just like Bono! [NYM]
• Has Men's Health supplanted Maxim as the nation's best-selling newsstand men's mag? Rodale says yes, Dennis denies. Either way, we're pretty sure of who's still ahead in the all-important "incarcerated" demographic. [WWD]

• Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein — who, with Mort Zuckerman, helped fund the baby steps of Radar 2.0 — just wants to be happy. Thus he hired a certified prostisseuse to come over work the knots out of his back and give him a happy ending. Now he's been indicted for soliciting a hooker and is charged with a third-degree felony. No word on whether or not he ever got that handjob. [Page Six]
• In an impressive psychological twist, Colin Farrell's stalker Dessarae Bradford holds a press conference on the steps of the LA federal courthouse and accuses the actor of stalking her. Crazy bitch is good. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Christopher Hitchens writes for Maxim, tells youth of America to go bareback. [Page Six]
• Tara Reid is told by her agent that she's landed the lead in Senior Skip Day and, to ensure her career's revival, she'll be starring opposite Robert De Niro. Unfortunately, De Niro's people insist he's in no way involved in the project. As for Reid's agent: cruel, but hilarious. [R&M (2nd item)]
• Gay everywhere throw tantrums as Nic Cage signs on to play Liberace. The role's really too subtle for him. [TMZ]
• Pete Doherty schedules another five-minute stint in rehab. [E!]

There's a major showdown brewing for tonight: Dennis Publishing brothers Maxim and Stuff will take to the softball field for a fierce battle of Axe Body Wash-scented supremacy. The game takes on a new relevance, however, with the recent defection of former Stuff EIC Jimmy Jellinek to the top of Maxim's masthead, taking with him three former Stuff staffers. Thus the game ensures to be nothing more than a violent grudge match. The question, however, is not whether or not Stuff can win back its pride or if Maxim will smack them into submission — it's whether or not Jellinek will play. As we understand it, his editorial skills may be an asset, but Jellinek's athletic prowess helps no team.

In a stunningly average display of athletic prowess and a minimal-at-best understanding of slow-pitch softball, the boys (and solitary girl) of CollegeHumor.com held off a furious last-licks rally by Maxim to defeat the mag, 15-13.

• In honor of the devil's big day, Maxim declares that as Satan, Katie Couric deserves to be their girl of the day. [Maxim]
• Maybe we're just slaphappy — no, we're definitely just slaphappy — but we cannot stop laughing at this stupid video. You know some lonely little gay is so in love with Anna Wintour that he spent an entire week locked in his parents' basement, creating this homage for the one he loves. It's sad and completely hysterical. [YouTube]
• If you want to smoke outside on the Maritime's patio, you must be sitting down. No standing — your lungs can't handle the strain. [HotelChatter]
• The Bulgarian Bar is back! Re-opening party to be hosted by Ariel Kaminer! [Gogol Bordello]
• The Wall Street Journal declares Philly home of the cheesecake. [Philadelphia Will Do]
• When MySpace wrongs you, upload hardcore pornography. [Consumerist]
• You don't want to know this, but the truth will set you free: Janice Dickinson spent three days in a hotel room fucking Dolph Lundgren and Grace Slick. OK, we lied. The truth will just make you a little sick. [Cityrag]
• Tricia Romano crawls deep inside Mr. Black's ass. [VV]
• And don't forget, today is the National Day of Slayer. Celebrate by rocking the fuck out with the angel of death. [NDS]

Today in the magazine-branding apocalypse: Dennis Publishing has signed a deal with real estate enablers Concorde Wilshire Partners to build Las Vegas' latest atrocity, the $1.2 billion Maxim Hotel and Casino. To be located on the north end of the strip, this polished bubble of inequity will boast a 60,000-square-foot casino and 2,300 rooms (all featuring Maxim brand comforters and dust ruffles), plus the usual overpriced retailers, pseudo-cool nightlife, celebrity chefs, and the unfulfilled promises of Eva Longoria. Of course, the Maxim Thunderdome's biggest allure will be its luxury spa, where new EIC Jimmy Jellinek will be personally giving hot stone massages; for an extra hundred bucks, he'll also color your hair with the mag's now-discontinued Bleach Blonde frosting kit.

• Anna Wintour and Patrick McCarthy don't like each other. Also, Rick Stengel doesn't plan big changes at Time and "greenies" die at post-Siegal Times. [NYO]
• Star gets sex wrong on Brangelina and Gwen Stefani babies, plans no corrections, because, as we read it, at least they got other stuff right. [WWD (second item)]
• Storm Field has only the nation's second-best weatherman name, and Sam Champion merely comes in fifth. [TMN]
• Katie Couric will have to spend $30K on new clothes for her CBS gig, experts say. Proportionally, that's like someone making $100K spending $200 on work clothes. [NYSun]
• Not at all uncharacteristically, a top exec is axed from NYDN. [NYP]
• Chicks dig TV news. [NYO]
• Former Rolling Stone publisher goes to Maxim, replacing dude who took his job at RS. [Ad Age]

The latest issue of Maxim once again slaps Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria on its cover, as she's won the coveted honor of the top slot in the magazine's annual Hot 100 issue, thus confirming for eternity her kleenex-and-hand-lotion worthiness. This is the second year in a row that Longoria has been named number one and the first time that Maxim has had a repeat winner; in order for Longoria to claim victory, she had to beat out the AlbaJolieLohans and 96 other insecure chicks who were just as willing to contort themselves in the same backlit, sultry, bikini-clad poses that you've seen in every other men's magazine a million times before.

According to WWD, Dennis Publishing will name their in-house golden boy, Stuff mag's Jimmy Jellinek, as Maxim's next EIC, where his throne shall rest high atop a tower of Bud Lights. The choice would make sense: Jellinek's been at Stuff since May of 2005 and put in dues prior to that at Complex, FHM, and Details. That is to say, he knows his charticles from his farticles.

Keith Kelly reported today that Maxim EIC Ed Needham had been canned, though we'd heard that Needham was long considering a farewell tour. Now, just sent out around Dennis Publishing, a clarification:

This email arrived late yesterday:

Never mind the not- actually-visible-from-space enormous Maxim cover that may or may not be in Las Vegas desert. An intrepid Maxim reader (looker? scanner? admirer? lecher?) has picked up the actual issue and noticed something interesting about the big gatefold feature:

Maxim has reached its 100th issue. To mark that achievement, the ur-lad mag has created an enormous version of its milestone cover, featuring Housewife Eva Longoria, and splayed it across the desert outside Las Vegas. The ginormous cover is 75 feet wide by 110 feet long, and the press release brags that it's visible from space. (Certainly it's visible from Google Earth — image at right — but then so is our apartment building.) We don't know if that claim is true, but, if it is, we really hope no Martians are looking right now. If they are, God, we're so embarrassed.

So just to recap the last 24 hours in magland: AMI shuttered three titles and moved one back to Florida while replacing its EIC, Hachette closed ELLEgirl as a print pub, and we got word that Time Inc. is prepping for yet another round of layoffs. Could there be yet another nail in the coffin of the magazine business this week? Of course there could. Keith Kelly reports today that even one of the few mag execs who seems to be having fun — one with new(ish) products and happy balance sheets — is trying to get out of the game:

It's a sad day to be a Briton: BrandRepublic reports that UK Maxim editor and beloved HuffPo pixie Greg Gutfeld is saying farewell to the little boys' club, as his contract is up in May and Dennis Publishing has decided not to renew. Additionally, circulation has dropped 16.2%, due in no small part to the proliferation of weekly lad mags, which are all the hotness in the UK right now. When asked for comment, Gutfeld busted out the Blackberry and told Gawker:

We've seen gay porn with less man-on-man action.

• Dow Jones reorg combines print and online editions of WSJ. [AP via Yahoo]
• New Meredith editorial director Mike Lafavore fires Fitness EIC Emily Listfield and then gives himself the job, at least for now. How very Wennerian. [NYP]
• Carl Icahn's Time Warner breakup plan had a 37-page chapter on why Time Inc. doesn't fit with the rest of the company. How does John Huey react to that? "I didn't find it a very compelling chapter." Of course not. [NYO]
• Jack Shafer prefers his newscasters brunette. [Slate]
• Maxim redesign to remove "a layer of goofiness"; Graydon promises his next car will be a hybrid. [WWD]
• Breaking: Newspapers sometimes create sections as vehicles to attract advertising. [NYO]
• LAT NYC bureau chief to take on book-publishing beat, too. Because there's just not enough going on in the city itself to keep a reporter busy. [LA Observed]
• Eleven mags missed their rate base in the last half of 2005 — and that doesn't even court the half-dozen AMI titles set to miss in the next go-round. [BW]

• Maxim, Sports Illustrated, and Playboy to spend up to $1 million each to host dueling pre-Super Bowl parties. Maybe some of those recently laid off from Time Inc. and Dennis Publishing will be invited. [NYP]
• Brandon Holley digs 20-something smart chicks. [NYT]
• Daily News TV guy Richard Huff still doesn't like Jon Stewart. [NYDN]
• The Observer redesigns its blogs, which now look thoroughly swell (if, sadly, less pink). [The Real Estate/NYO]
• Missed In Style: Celebrity Weddings on ABC Monday night? Then you missed your chance to see highlights from Details editor Dan Peres' wedding. We're sure you're as sad as we are. [WWD]

• While Brad Pitt's adoption of Angelina Jolie's two stolen children is not yet official, a judge today has approved the changing of the kids' legal names to Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt and Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. As if these two urchins didn't face a tragic enough future as is. [Us Weekly]
• If you paid attention in Philosophy 101, you'd know that all men who wear Axe Body Spray also read Maxim. Actually, you'd probably know that whether you took philosophy or not. [Gongli]
• Personally, our "media diet" consists of Taco Bell, peanuts, and a glass of Charles Shaw. [Romenesko]
• Woody Allen is purchasing a $25.9 million townhouse on East 70th Street. A favorable review from the Times will do that for you. [The Real Estate]
• Delicious Discounts hooks you up with discounted delivery from over a thousand Manhattan restaurants — at least two of which have received a favorable score for health and cleanliness! [Consumerist]