Aren't there dozens of Paris Hilton video stills that don't include an actual sex act?)

Googled and the actual answer is six, or just one half dozen.

The photo is actually used to make a decent joke, but really, you've got to weigh the downside of a sex photo on your site. Especially because the rest of the site isn't X-rated.

If the whole site were X-rated, then fine. But putting that photo in is like having an explicit Ewok gang-bang sequence in Return of the Jedi.

Funny? Yes. Sexy? Without doubt. But not really in the spirit of the rest of the film.

Her father must be so proud.

Funny, but I just can't put "sexy" and "Paris Hilton" together. She looks like one of those bald abyssinian cats to me.

Ace - Don't get me all worked up like that for a blurry indistinct image that is most likely a girl blowing a guy. Man, I saw your warning and thought, "YeeHaw, free Hilton porn!" And I even had to scroll down to see the silly image.

Shit, what a let down.

Scout - The phrase "bald abyssinian cats" in the same sentence with "I just can't put "sexy" and "Paris Hilton" together" leads me to believe you need to examine the room you are in to see if it's a closet, if you know what I mean.

Check your assumptions, Dave.

I actually agree with Scout. I really find the girl pretty unappealing. There is something robot-like about her, and I don't mean that in the good way.

If anyone's read The Big Sleep, there's this outstanding description of Carmen Ravenwood right in the beginning, where he describes her as basically this ferally-stupid and selfish thing, both mechanical and animal-like at once.

She's physically attractive, according to Chandler, but that initial description of her just screws the pooch on actually thinking of her in an erotic manner.

I think of Paris Hilton as Carmen Ravenwood.

I don't mind dirty girls, mind you. But there's just something about her feral little eyes gleaming like the eyes of a rodent as she looks at herself in the camera monitor...

Two things:
1- I am kidding around with you and Scout.
2- It is not JUST find Hilton unsexy, though that is mighty strange to me, but whatever, but having the style to use the phrase "bald abyssinian cats" as if Scout has intimate knowledge of such beasts that led to my attempt at humor.
3- I wanted to use the line, "you need to examine the room you are in to see if it's a closet".

Ok, so three things, not two things. Whatever.

Dave --

It's a really, really big closet that I share with all of the other heterosexual women in the world.

But that's ok, it would have been a funny joke if I were a guy.

Doh!

Scout seems like such a guy name. Plus you were commenting on Paris' sexuality with such self-assurance .... say, what are you and all those gals doing in that closet anyway?

Really? A guy nane? I thought it was plucky yet winsome name, with a nostalgic appeal to the book "To Kill a Mockingbird."

I think if I were a guy -- a strange way to begin a sentence -- I would have borrowed the name of mythical Celtic warrior or maybe something involving a high level Paladin.

I suppose the only closet I'm in is a political one. I'm trying to keep my hawkish, anarchist leanings under wraps, since I don't think it would go down well at Gymboree.

But Scout in TKM is a Tom Boy, not a "little Princess" kind of a little girl.

"Hawkish Anarchist", kind of a scary sounding political bent.

It's winsome and plucky, damn it. Winsome and plucky.

As for the self-assurance about who is and is not sexy, I know few women who don't have definite opinions on such a topic. And it's almost always the polar opposite of what a man thinks.

I've never met a woman who finds the Pamela Andersons and Jenny McCarthys of the world to be attractive. They look inflatable. Likewise Madonna or pretty much any porn star. We think they're just dirty and germ-infested.

And women tend to point to Gwyneth Paltrow and the late Audrey Hepburn as examples of exceptionally beautiful women, while many men seem to find them lacking in sex appeal.

Scout,

for the record, I'm a man, and if I were a single time traveller, I'd do Audrey Hepburn in a heartbeat -- and pick her over any of the skanks you mentioned!

Speaking of folks trying to rip you off--and apologies if you noticed it already yourself--apparently the creator of Achewood named Lyle's blog after you. It's the best blog of the bunch, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but still.

Scout,

I'm with you and Brian B on this. I'm not quite as interested in Gwyneth Paltrow but I think Audrey Hepburn was the most attractive woman that ever lived. And I've seen a lot of them. And personally, "breast augmentation" is disgusting.

I know I'm not alone on this so I think you and your lady-friends might have underestimated our gender a bit. But then, that's also kind of depressing since I know that there are plenty of other guys who are interested in the same women I'm interested in. There's always a catch...

I don't know. Anytime you ask a woman who's hot she's liable to say "Annie Lennox" or some bullshit like that.

I'm not big on Pam Anderson or Jenny McCarthy myself, but women are always claiming these borderline-attractive women are "beautiful."

Audrey Hepburn is just the classic example. Is she cute? Yeah, she's cute. But... come on now.

I think women are just on crack as regards feminine beauty (at least as perceived by men), or else there's a pan-gender conspiracy among women to willfully refuse to name actually-hot women as "beautiful."

I mean-- go to any party, pick out the hottest woman there, and ask your girlfriend or wife if she's beautiful. Let the fault-finding and nit-picking commence.

There's a guy on Last Comic Standing who has a funny bit on this point. He keeps saying men can look -- stare, even-- at any hot woman they like without catching hell from the wife, so long as they speak badly about the woman they're ogling.

"Look at that. (staring) Look at the way she's all hangin' out there. (ogling) That's not right. (winking at ogled woman) Her parents didn't raise her right. (makes "call me" gesture to ogled woman)"

As the Simpsons say: It's funny. It's funny and it's true.

Wellllll....

There's Classic Beauty with a capital 'B' type. Just like the old movies show. Good bones, empirically beautiful, pleasantly proportional and not lopsided.

And then there's the sop-her-up-with-a-biscuit airbrushed sexalicious nympho type who is popping off the tabloid page.

Different creatures, different standard, different men.

Oh, and Scout, winsome and plucky. Good on ya, love it. Excellent nick for a chick.

Thanks lauraw!

And Annie Lennox is SO not hot. Although I do agree that some women go out of their way to insist that marginally attractive women are beautiful. Like Queen Latifah, or Monica Lewinsky, or Oprah.

But I don't think that we "willfully refuse to name actually-hot women as 'beautiful.'" It's just a matter of taste. There are men and women considered conventionally attractive, who I don't care for. For example, I don't think that Julia Roberts is very attractive. I understand that this might fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it's just personal preference. There's something about her that turns me off. But in a similar vein, I think that Brad Pit is fugly -- he has horrible skin, ugly hair and when he talks in that gasping whisper voice, it makes my skin crawl.

As much as it pains me, I have to take issue with Ace here. The reason women despise other women is because they're jealous and they're in a situation where that jealousy has real meaning. I guarantee that any woman who is interested in you would lose it if she were in the presence of just about any other woman on earth if you so much as noticed her existence. And many times, even if you don't.

BTW, sorry to hear that Simmons has finally decided to rip you off. Maybe you should send him a POLITE email and let him know how PLEASED you are that he's chosen this name. Then, you can go on to explain how the Cowbell meme has become a blogosphere synonym for the booming Bush economy.

Considering that he works for ESPN, he'll either drop the name in horror of a Limbaugh-like backlash, or decide to be subversive and give you a prominent link and mention on his page. Either way, you win big. Even if you haven't got a clue about Hepburn...

Or...do a little swipe of your own, Ace. Grab something off his POS blog (like his picture?) and turn it into a meme for "things that suck".

Pick a fight with the dude. There are dozens of ways you can make the guy into a joke.

Seriously, read a few of his columns. If you want to hit him where it hurts you will attack either the Celtics or the Red Sox. (Maybe a Bill Simmons clock that will continue to count until the Red Sox win a World Series?)

Sic em, Ace.

Eh. It's a minor annoyance, but I'm not sure I have any right to be annoyed (which actually makes it more annoying still). I didn't come up with cowbell, and there are other sites, like the Cowbell Shrine, which have done more with the swipe than I have.

Simmons probably never read this site in his life.

I'm halfway between actually annoyed and doing Howard-Stern-type schtick. Stern is notoriously for claiming credit for every "radio innovation" that every occurred, including, sometimes, the "innovation" of having two or three people in a studio speaking rather than just a single DJ. If you have a radio show and two people are having a conversation, you're "ripping off" Stern.

I don't know if Stern is serious when he begins making these absurd claims that he's being "ripped off" (I suspect he sorta is), but I'm a little less serious than that.

Simmons wouldn't change the name of his site if I asked him to, and I can't say I blame him.

Still, whether he stole or not, he's a permanent enemy of this site and a gold-plated jackass emeritus.

I dunno, I see you and Simmons as long-lost brothers who became enemies only thru some tragic misunderstanding.

Like Romulus and Remus.

"Winsome & Plucky - they're cops!"

Ace, on Simmons' site yesterday, he was throwing out reader-suggested names and said that he liked More Cowbell. Perhaps it was one of us who proferred the name. Which would indicate a connection, although not, y'know, (what was it?) a "collaborative connection".

Also, should that be "Simmons'" or "Simmons's"? I can never keep that shit straight.

Ace,

I've got to say, I'm a big fan of yours and of the Sportsguy's. In fact, I think your senses of humor are kind of similar, which is why you both like the cowbell skit so much. This is definitely more a case of "great minds..." than of theft. I also think that if you read a little Simmons (assuming you like sports), you'd find him funny. His stuff on sports movies is particularly good:

http://sports.espn.go.com/page2/movies/s/simmons/020830.html

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040302

Um, for the info abysinnians are NOT bald. DUH!