• How to cope with asthma? By chain smoking and tattooing the word "breathe" on your wrist. Works for Lohan! [Monsters & Critics]
• Sometimes it pays to be the other woman: Ron Perelman's former mistress Susan Kasen scored $1 million tax-free, a $1 million insurance policy, a $500,000 apartment, a monthly allowance of $5,000 and an annual payment of $50,000. [R&M]
• It's just kind of sad how Halle Berry repeatedly winds up with fuckbots. [Page Six]
• Vince Neil is too "puffy" to belt out a few Motley Crue tunes. [Page Six]
• Oh, did we say "puffy?" We meant that Neil was absolutely unhinged, and not in a rock sort of way. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Dukes of Hazzard and Son of the Mask lead the Razzie nominations, which recognize singularly shitty acheivements in filmmaking. In the Worst Supporting Actress category, Jessica Simpson, nominated for her thighs' role in Dukes, will go head-to-head with Paris Hilton's breathtaking performance in House of Wax. At any rate, it's more fun than the Oscars.

• American Idol Clay Aiken engaging in hot homo sex with a former Green Beret? Golly, we can't imagine. Actually, we can — but only if Clay bottomed. [Page Six]
• And there's this detailed description of said hot homo sex, which will make the Claymates either cry or masturbate. [R&M]
• Jessica Simpson engages in assplay with Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine; the girl just can't stay away from metrosexual pop boys, can she? [Page Six]
• For the inevitable Arianna Huffington-Tim Russert cage match, we'll be putting our money on Huffington. Her well-manicured nails would easily pierce Russert's tender, puffy flesh. [Lowdown]
• Nicole Kidman's engagement ring isn't really that pretty. We always thought she was more of a classic setting, brilliant-cut type of girl. [OAN]

Just in case you still held a shadow of a glimmer of sparkle of a doubt in your "Nick and Jessica 4-Ever" hoping hearts that their love was truly dead, comes this tidbit buried in today's AP wires:

• Former Jackass Steve-O claims to have given Paris Hilton and Starvos Niarchos some "mind-altering substances" shortly before Niarchos crashed Hilton's Bentley. Steve-O is clearly our generation's Deep Throat. [Scoop]
• Director Steven Spielberg has demanded an apology from Kathy Griffin after she made a rehab joke in regards to toddling actress Dakota Fanning. Griffin faces blacklisting from Spielberg's projects, but that might be the best thing to ever happen to her career. [Page Six]
• In his autobiographical novel Junior, former child-star Macauley Culkin confesses to thoughts of suicide. If we were constantly fighting off bungling burgulars, we'd be suicidal, too. [R&M]
• Jessica Simpson drops a grand on cartoon art that reads like something you'd buy in Times Square. [Page Six]
• Universal Music might have reached the end of its rope with devilish exec Tommy Mottola. If so, does this mean he might disappear forever? Please? [Gatecrasher]
• We can't decide if Newark's would-be mayor Cory Booker is hot or not. [Lowdown]

Using a scientific method we're not quite sober enough to wrap our heads around, Media Orchard has calculated a ranking of celebrities as determined by the number of times their photo has appeared in Us Weekly from August 1, 2005 through January 2, 2006. It's just the sort of useless data you never knew you wanted but, not knowing it's available, simply cannot live without:

People magazine reports that Jessica Simpson, having spent a full two weeks mourning the dissolution of her sham marriage to Nick Lachey, has already found her groove again in the form of a $3 million home in Beverly Hills:

• Impatient with growing public sentiment that she's a whorelet, Jessica Simpson considers leaving her new PR man Rob Shuter — as if there's some magic flack out there who can erase the pain of collagen. [Lowdown]
• His magazine gets killed — AGAIN — and how does Maer Roshan cope? With a vacation to Morocco. When the eventual Radar 3.0 gets murdered, maybe Roshan can buy a yacht and cruise back and forth between Capri and St. Tropez. [Page Six]
• Source co-owner Benzino (aka Raymond Scott) wasn't thrilled when Ozone mag dubbed him the year's Most Successful Extortionist. His professional solution: Call Ozone owner Julia Beverly and call her a "ugly bush pig slutmonkey whore." Which is exactly how we'd react. [Gatecrasher]
• Moments before the live NBC broadcast of Martha Stewart's Apprentice finale, a 6-year-old child declared the winner, forcing a sequestering of the finalist and (perhaps) a changed outcome. This is, of course, exactly how it works in a real-life boardroom — if you're in fucking Baby Boom. [Page Six]

· Indeed, a puppy is a terrible Christmas present. Every animal lover knows that sheep are much more docile while being sodomized during the holidays.
· There's probably some Photoshop chicanery at play here, but just in case, here's a link to Eliza Dushku's alleged upstaging of a year's worth of nipple slips.
· We bet you've been unable to sleep for weeks, tormented by your ignorance of Woody Allen's feelings about London's weather or the status of Rivers Cuomo's celibacy pledge. Finally, closure!
· Soon-to-be celebrity footnote Nick Lachey's not going down without a fight.

• PETA places stickers featuring Anna Wintour's luverly visage on urinals, knowingly located at venues frequented by the Voguester. We're counting on you to catch some images of the campaign (at Da Silvano, La Esquina, and the Four Seasons) before management is forced to remove the handiwork. [Page Six]
• Madonna waltzes into the Mercer Kitchen and seduces hotelier Andre Balazs for a solid 10 minutes. Balazs's girlfriend, actress Uma Thurman, seemed to not notice — or, perhaps, care. Madge ain't much competition these days. [Lowdown]
• As a nice complement to Katie Couric's own retardation, a poet within NBC has penned a holiday-appopriate ode to the Today princess: "'Tis right before seven, On the set of 'Today,' There struts a smug diva, Who wants things her way." [Page Six]
• The New Yorker's Ken Auletta rips Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. a new one in the latest issue of the mag. [R&M]
• How does Jessica Simpson deal with an ugly breakup? Collagen, natch, because your first rebound hook-up goes so much more smoothly when you're sporting a nice set of DSLs. [Scoop (last item)]

• Time's Viveca Novak testifies to Plame grand jury, and — eschewing Judy Miller's wait-a-few-weeks model — she'll write about it in next week's Time. [NYT]
• MPA figures out what'll save magazines: This crazy new thing called the Internet! [Mediaweek]
• Actress won't get naked for VF, and fires publicist who set up the shoot. We're a little bit in love now, to be honest. [Radar]
• Salon.com "wants to be known for more than polemics." Who knew. [MW]
• In Touch runs "Exclusive: Jessica's Breakup Diary." Which is great — except, of course, that Jessica had nothing to do with it. [WWD]

The celebrity rag game is a cutthroat business. While US Weekly has lately been getting fat feeding on the bloated corpses of mercy-killed celebrity relationships, others have to settle for applying their overly exuberant BREAKING NEWS! tags to slightly less exciting business:

· US Weekly is the first to report that Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, having hung in there long enough to live up to the 'for richer' part of their vows, decide to drop the charade and cash in their chips before finding out what comes next. Grocery check-outs everywhere are suddenly good for a laugh.
· Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria finds seasonal references mixed with loud swearing serves as a handy substitute to paying for things. A greeting card craze ensues.
· A studio lot spy snaps a picture of George Clooney's adorable microcar; if he tried to squeeze his fat Syrianna ass into this thing, we think we may have an inkling as to how he ruptured his spinal fluid sac.
· New Line throws obnoxious sums of cash at Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan and Brett Ratner, hoping to once again bottle the Rush Hour magic.
· Brittany Murphy's lawyer sends us an angry letter letting us know how hard y'all suck at the Blind Item Guessing Game. Really, people, for shame!

Whenever a reluctant truth-bomb like late Wednesday's (very sneaky) announcement that Nick and Jessica have abandoned their marital charade is dropped on the celebrity rag universe—thanks, Us Weekly—it takes some time for the magazines to pick up the pieces.

The Nick and Jessica Thanksgiving Special is tinged with sadness this year, as the couple has finally succumbed to the incredible stress of pretending to be married for the sake of their careers and admitted their separation to Us Weekly. The end of the Nick and Jessica Era sounds like this:

· "Schuth has said he fantasized about being married to 'Alias' star Jennifer Garner. At his sentencing, he said: 'I apologize to Jennifer Garner and her pool boy Ben Affleck for involving them in my fantasies.'" Amazingly, this is the least troubling part of the story.
· Michael Eisner showed his impeccable instincts by hating Johnny Depp's soused, Keith Richards-flavored performance in Pirates of the Caribbean . As it turns out, Eisner's fears were unfounded, and Depp did not ruin the film.
· Wanna see a turntable covered in blow? Of course you do.
· Pamela Anderson is shocked—shocked!—that the producers of Stacked, a sitcom with a title that puns on her prodigious, man-made rack, would dress her in clothes that showcase said factory-installed mams. Shocked!
· Jessica Simpson is photographed sans wedding ring, sans Lachey-unit, but with some other guy at a movie. These are all signs of a completely healthy, not at all maintained-solely-for-appearances union.

· ABC climbs quickly back in bed with recently ousted Commander in Chief creator/showrunner Rod Lurie, who will get to write and direct the second installment of his planned "Improbable Office-Holders" trilogy with Triumph, the story of an 18 year old mayor. Should the pilot get a series order, ABC and the strong-willed Lurie plan on parting bitterly after the third episode, in which the manchild mayor loses his virginity to an entire brothelful of prostitutes. [Variety]
· Jessica Simpson is in negotiations to star with Dane Cook in Lions Gate's Employee of the Month. Simpson's father/manager is getting a producing credit, and a healthy bonus awaits if he can maintain the illusion that his daughter's marriage is still intact while simultaneously feeding rumors of an affair with her co-star to US Weekly. [THR]
· Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst sets up the reincarnation pilot For Pete's Sake at NBC. Producing partner Jason Goldberg notes Kutcher's personal stamp on the project: in their world, celebrities automatically get into heaven. Indeed, no one could possibly doubt Kutcher's involvement now that he's turning the afterlife into the Spider Club. [Variety]
· Not even NBC's potent Poseidon Adventure triumvirate of Adam Baldwin, Rutger Hauer, and Steve Guttenberg could get within spitting distance of the ABC Sunday night Nielsen wrecking ball, making the Guttenberg/Patrick Dempsey Police Academy/Loverboy face-off somewhat anticlimactic. [THR]
· CBS will pit underemployed, fading celebrities against each other in classic gameshows for an American version of British hit Gameshow Marathon. The public will certainly clamor to watch a third season Survivor loser and Brad Garrett match wits in a heated Card Sharks contest. [Variety]

• The contestants on this season of Donald Trump's Apprentice have been threatened with "severe consequences" if they violate non-disclosure agreements. Frankly, we can't imagine a consequence more severe than simply appearing on the show, but we're sure Trump and Mark Burnett will cook up something pervy. [Lowdown]
• Jessica Simpson fears that younger sister Ashlee will either party herself into serious trouble, or burn down the house while microwaving popcorn. [Page Six]
• Did People executive editor Peter Castro get passed over for the top job at TV Guide because Rupert Murdoch doesn't like the ethnic flavor? [Gatecrasher]
• Larry David's summer home on Martha's Vineyard becomes an epicenter of yuppie controversy, as contractors destroy protected vegetation to create a giant fire pit, barbeque, and stage area. David, being an environmentalist, blames his lawyer. [Page Six]
• The wise handlers for former President Bill Clinton won't allow the liberal ladykiller to be photographed alone with model Petra Nemcova. Pity, we really wanted to see him offer her some post-tsunami comfort. [R&M]
• Michael Jackson thanks his fans for sticking with him while he drunkenly shared his bed with young boys. [Scoop]

Look, it's Friday, and we can barely read the tiny little words on our monitor because this hangover is making our eyeballs vibrate uncontrollably. (Which, in fact, is not an altogether unpleasant sensation.) Still, this made us laugh, then wonder how drunk Johnny Knoxville would have to be to mistake this Jessica Simpson stand-in for the real article and attempt to wreck his marriage. Enjoy.

We just heard another interesting tidbit from the Accessories Council Excellence awards held on Tuesday. Allegedly, all reporters from our treasured tabloids (including Us Weekly, Star, Life & Style, and In Touch) were banned from the event. This was tactfully handled by the ACE publicist, who sent out an email late Monday night, retracting invitations.

We sort of hate ourselves for not attending Tuesday night's Accessories Council Excellence awards, held at Cipriani's 42nd Street lair. The event was, it seems, the place to be if your attention is sharply focused on the movements of Jessica Simpson and the twitches of the twins Olsen — but, you know, we were feeling gassy and According to Jim was on, so we just stayed in.