Hilary Duff and her boyfriend Joel Madden have had to recently seek a restraining order against a man they say is stalking them, for the purpose of meeting and becoming romantically involved with Hilary.  The man, a 19 year old Russian guy, came over from Russia with, what Hilary’s people say, the intentions of meeting her and having contact with her at any expense. 

He has even written her letters saying he will do whatever it takes.  Ouch – scary.  Good thing they got a restraining order.  Apparently this guy’s been to a few of Good Charlotte’s concerts (that’s Duff’s boyfriends band), and also has had contact with Joel’s family and Hilary’s family so this guy definitely doesn’t have all his marbles and needs to be stopped. 

He’s also stated that Hilary is in love with him (at least in his mind) and that her boyfriend is basically the only barrier in the way.  I hope this dude just disappears.  These kinds of people typically don’t give up.  Hopefully Hilary and Joel aren’t too much on edge – which is more than I’d be able to say for myself if I were in this situation!

Poor Angelina and Brad.  Why won’t the press just leave them and their happy little family alone?  Perhaps I shouldn’t be feeling so sorry for them, since together I’m sure they make thirty times more than any one of us would make in a lifetime, but I have to admit the picture I saw of them today, just trying to have some fun with their kid, made me kind of sad.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt tried taking their son Maddox on a rickshaw ride in India where they are currently filming the movie of the story about Daniel Pearl, the journalist who was killed and his wife, whom Angelina is playing.  They were so mobbed by photogs and paparazzi that they couldn’t even leave their hotel.

When they did leave their hotel to take their kid on a ride, bodyguards reportedly had to hop off the ride at every stop just to get the photographers to stop hounding them.  You couldn’t pay me enough to harass people like that, I swear.  I know everyone says, oh the poor rich celebrities – this is what they wanted by being famous and now that they have it they seem ungrateful. 

But you know what, enough is enough – leave these people alone.  They are human beings too.

OK, this is getting crazy.  We truly know we live in the 21st century now.  Richard Branson, the free spirited billionaire head of Virgin enterprises, is creating a space travel program where the very rich can pay about $200,000 per ticket for the priveledge of travelling to outerspace in his space craft. 

You get to wear a diaper, because there will not be any toilets on board.  Some of the stars who have reportedly expressed interest, or already bought tickets for the space flights are Paris Hilton (can’t picture her wearing a diaper, or being in space), Dave Navarro, Prince Harry, possibly Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. 

That’s just the beginning.  It looks like a lot of stars will be wanting to get in on the action.  Let’s hope Branson is ready for all this and this whole space flight thing is not just a complete disaster, as it would be so easy to see it becoming that way.  There are reportedly already about 7,000 celebrities and ridiculously rich people already signed on to get their trip to outer space.

And I couldn’t agree more.  I think Scarlett is just starting off on a great career, and her naturally curvy body has gotten a lot of interest from the male sex over the past few years. 

The young star – she’s only 21 damn her! – got her start playing the young horse owner in Robert Redford’s “Horse Whisperer”, was absent from the movie scene for a while, and then exploded back onto the movie scene with a grown up face and body, and sudden boobs! 

Men love her curviness, and she also has a slight Angelina pout going on, with good bone structure too, so she’s pretty much a shoe in for a glamorous movie star.  She also seems to have a good head on her shoulders, acknowledging that the whole Hollywood hoopla should be taken in stride, because your career can take a turn for the worst at any moment, and adding that every time she wraps a movie, she always thinks it must be the last one she’ll ever get. 

Her down to earth attitude and versatile bombshell look earned this girl the sexiest woman alive title from the men’s magazine Esquire.

The son of J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, has been working on another unfinished work by the author who passed away when it was unfinished titled “The Children of Hurin”, which includes the elves and hobbits of the LOTR and The Hobbit stories.  Does this mean Peter Jackson may be directing another installment? 

Lets not jump that far ahead yet, but at least we do know another book is coming out.  This is exciting news for the growing legion of LOTR fans, especially since the trilogy of movies directed by Peter Jackson become so popular, as well as commercial hits (and cult hits, an unusual combination today).  Here’s to hoping Jackson is inspired to do one more – especially since King Kong was pretty average.

Anna Nicole, stricken by grief for her son Daniel Smith’s death, has reportedly hired out the second autopsy on her son Daniel Smith to determine his cause of death after Bahamian authorities termed his death “unnatural” and “suspicious”. 

The blond bombshell has successfully avoided the press so far, reportedly going into seclusion with her new baby girl after everything happened with her son.  We do know that the other person that was present in the room at Daniel’s time of death was her attorney Howard K. Stern, whom Smith has always had quite a curious relationship with, to say the least. 

She supposedly hired the same coroner who did consultation work on other high profile and high publicity deaths as well, and this second autopsy was ok’d by the original coroner who examined Daniel’s body. 

So far the only thing that’s been released about Daniel Smith’s results are that he had antidepressants in his system, and they think they know what killed him, but are awaiting pathology results.  It is up to Anna whether she wants to disclose these results to the public. 

Ellen DeGeneres, the infamous female comedienne and lover of the hot Portia DeRossi who’s best known as the bitchy attorney on Allie McBeal (when people cared about the show), and has made other excellent appearances in other shows, is set to host the next Oscar awards show. 

The comic says she’s a little nervous, but I’m sure she’ll do well since she’s used to being in front of live audiences after a standup career, and a talk show in front of a live audience.  

Not only that, Ellen is well liked in Hollywood, so I’m sure she’ll be just fine!  Ellen is fine after a minor car accident too, where she walked away and can be seen in footage holding hands with her girlfriend Portia. 

Famous bubbly blonde bombshell and former reality star and Playboy playmate, Anna Nicole Smith, had a terribe tragedy yesterday. 

Her 20 year old son died suddenly.  He apparently was found in one of the hospital rooms where Anna Nicole was staying after she had just days before given birth to her baby girl.  No word yet on cause of death, although it looks like drugs are not suspected yet. 

There’s a new kid in town when it comes to getting movies online – but this time you don’t get the movies mailed to you, the ”Vongo” service allows you to download movies (if I remember correctly from the TV ads, it let’s you do an unlimited amount of downloads in any given month) for about $10 a month. 

I’m wondering if they’re really going to give Netflix a run for their money, or if the internet community is really savvy enough to be able to download such a large amount of movies to make this service worthwhile. 

It probably depends on the capabilities of one’s computer system, and their “know how”, since downloading entire movies can actually take a pretty long time on the older operating systems and older processors.   

They do have an edge over Netflix though, because I think Netflix only allows a certain amount of DVD rentals per month for their $10 per month price for service.  Anyone who knows much about the new Vongo service, feel free to comment!

OK, OK, am I missing something here? I started off as a huge fan of the drama/action series “24″ from season 1, and consistently notice a decline in the writing and acting in the show, yet it’s viewership is higher than ever, and it’s receiving more critical acclaim now than it ever did.