Say hello to Cassius Marcellus Cornelius Clay, a Yale sophomore whose life changed at Barneys one day, when fashionable rapper Kanye West complimented him on his shoes and, eventually, invited the lad to travel the world as Kanye's right-hand man.

Before his humble blue-hued space opera, poor James Cameron was rattling a tin cup around, dancing for nickels to buy sweet, sweet sangawiches. But now he's rich as a king! The director stands to make nearly half-a-billion bones from Avatar.

Spitzer pal Ashley Dupre's Playboy shoot is "coming" soon, ha. Daily Intel got a peek, but they're "tight-lipped," ha. We're just heartened Ashley's taking our advice: Do some porn, but keep it off the internet. "Breasts," ha. [Pic: Myspace]

The I Can Haz Cheezburger guy, Ben Huh, got an AdAge profile. They've got 21 full-time employees, 30 blogs, and 11.5M visitors a month. They were profitable in their first quarter "almost entirely via ad networks and Google AdSense." [AdAge]

City Living, Toronto's finest magazine, did not make this cover ironically! Rather, for elegance.

Hey, look! Being a Gawker Intern pays off. One of our most famous non-paid workers, James Frey, is shopping a young adult series that just got preemptively optioned by DreamWorks. Estimates say the deal was in the high six figures.

Heidi Montag has taken the next necessary step in all great American success stories. The Hills star will appear nude (but "tasteful") in the September issue of Playboy. The bearded figure seen lurking in the background will be Spencer. [People]

Here's a bright ray of sunshine piercing through the dark skies of the newspaper industry: Bingo Gossip. It's thriving! Could Missy Mouser, the 26-year-old founder of this free bimonthly tabloid chronicling the lighter side of the Texas bingo world hold the answers for what ails the publishing business? YES, if the…

Not only is the Owen Wilson Comeback Tour doing far better than Britney's, but it now appears that he's gotten his old girlfriend back. Right on the heels of going back to work on Marley and Me with fellow marijuana enthusiast Jennifer Aniston, it seems that he's "rekindled his romance" with the woman who…

Though the 23 million or so viewers who stuck around after American Idol to check out the series premiere of The Moment of Truth surely provided all the validation he needed, Fox president of the Dark Alternative Programming Arts Mike Darnell has been reveling in the critical scorn heaped upon his lie-detecting…

"MSNBC said today that [general manager] Dan Abrams, who has been the host of a 9 p.m. news hour called 'Live with Dan Abrams' temporarily since July, will stay in the job permanently, leaving behind the managerial position he had occupied for a little over a year." With MSNBC's ratings nipping at CNN's heels, this…

After seven months of suffering through the unrequited love of their favorite actor, the proprietors of If I Blog It, They Will Come finally entice Kevin Costner to visit their online shrine to the Field of Dreams star. Tears are shed and new friendships are forged in what will doubtlessly prove the feel-good link…

Yesterday, just a little over one year since the fateful night part-time Costa Rican resident Mel Gibson strolled out of a Malibu cocktail lounge and into infamy as the Hebrew-hatingest, sugartit-leeriest Oscar winner in all of Hollywood, a judge declared the actor free from having to attend mandatory Alcoholics…

Today brings the debut of blogger-cum-Daily News food critic Restaurant Girl, real name Danyelle Freeman. When the news was announced a week ago, we were frankly skeptical of her lack of skill and anonymity. While she has yet to openly announce that, no, she can't write very well, she has fully embraced her own…

The Voice has a great profile of Mediabistro millionairess Laurel Touby today; it includes two of our favorite Laurel anecdotes ever. What you need to know about the former desperate freelancer:

Danyelle Freeman, food blogger Restaurant Girl, has been tapped to become the New York Daily News' next food critic. As many an Eater commenter has remarked, the only problem is that Freeman—an alumna of both Harvard and Duke, as she notes on her website—can't write. She cadges free meals from PR people—and she's…