Carpet

Ryan Pinkston's life is just like that of any 19-year-old's - except that on any given day, he may read a screenplay, stop by a few auditions or call up his buddy Ashton Kutcher. A really good day might include kissing Carmen Electra. Pinkston may not yet have achieved the fame of his friend Kutcher, but his face is instantly recognizable to anyone who has watched the hidden-camera hit Punk'd. These days, the Columbia native is living in Los Angeles while searching for his next step toward stardom.

Hollywood magic worked its most potent spell last night on Abigail Breslin. With whimsical sleight-of-hand, the preteen Cinderella was transformed from the gawky, bespectacled beauty pageant contender she played in Little Miss Sunshine, to a composed little princess, worthy of any crown. Her red-carpet transformation came during last night's presentation of the 79th Academy Awards, a razzle-dazzle evening of visual delights. Abigail turned up in what resembled an "Easter basket dress," said Joanne Stoner, founder of eDressMe.

The Emmy Awards are not the Oscars, but it was hard to tell on last night's red carpet as stars from prime time's most celebrated shows posed for cameras in elegant, sober, sophisticated, reined-in fashions. That's not to say the fashions were boring. On the contrary, the looks seemed fresh and many of them even fashion-forward. The newest trend unveiled at the television awards ceremony was purple. From lavenders and lilacs to eggplant and deep violet, purple was the "it" color to wear.

A spacious Cape Cod house on Solomons Island Road - with 6,000 square feet of space - is on the auction block. The place has high ceilings, loads of bathrooms and is situated on a busy Edgewater artery. The World War II-era building sits on more than an acre and was last occupied by Anne Arundel County police officers. The former Southern District maintains many of its former charms: lockers, a white board for shift assignments, bulletproof glass and at least five jail cells. Prospective buyers inspected the brick-front building from top to bottom at an open house this week, and a public auction of the property will be held Tuesday, marking the first time the county will try to sell a property in this fashion.

It was a night to recognize cowboys, eccentric literary geniuses and powerful 1950s senators. But the style honors went to a handful of lovely ladies who managed to pull off a nearly flawless red carpet during last night's Academy Awards. There was very little to complain about as veterans such as Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, as well as newbies such as Keira Knightley and Jessica Alba, strolled past a parade of cameras and microphones in one elegant look after another. It was almost disappointing, all that perfection.

The red carpet - it's got a casualty rate worse than a Dick Cheney hunting trip. The Rivers women, Joan and Melissa, have been busted to the TV Guide Channel, where they have to do their snarky shtick squashed into a horizontally split screen while listings for Japanese anime and celebrity poker shows roll queasily below them. Comic Kathy Griffin got sent back down to the minors for joking about a 10-year-old actress going into rehab. And Isaac Mizrahi, the gay fashion designer, was unrepentant after committing what sure looked to me like misdemeanor battery on live TV at the Golden Globes, squeezing one actress' breasts and asking another about her nether hair.

DAILYCELEB.COM What's the point? -- Oh, how hard it must be to be a celebrity, having to attend red-carpet events practically daily. This site contains photos of just about all these Hollywood events, from film premieres to award shows large and small to book-signings to birthday parties. Any time there are celebrities on carpets, their photos end up here. What to look for --Unless you qualify for a commercial account (probably not that likely), you will have to content yourself to seeing the thumbnail photos, but they are decent-enough size to get a sense of a bad outfit or a strange premiere.

He got to the party a little late, but when Richard Keyser slipped through the glass doors of the Charles Theatre last night and into a swelling crowd, his entrance was that of a star. A dozen flash bulbs went off, catching the 16-year-old in a fusillade of lights. The co-directors of The Boys of Baraka, whose local premiere would begin in two hours, bounded over, threw their arms around him and gushed like den mothers. And as reporters appeared, flipped open their notebooks, and got ready to scrawl his words, he spotted his friend and film co-star, Montrey Moore, and sidled up to him. A mere 5-foot-5, he glanced up at the 6-foot-3 Montrey, a high school sophomore who has grown 7 inches since the film was completed two years ago, and delivered the kind of line that made The Boys of Baraka, a documentary about four Baltimore boys' journey to a tiny boarding school in Africa, the talk of the film-festival circuit last year.

Most of us get ourselves dressed every morning. But if you're rich and famous, you have no need for such inconveniences. You have a stylist. And when supermodel Rachel Hunter, of Sports Illustrated fame, went looking for a new creative type to help pick out her clothes and accessories, she decided to conduct her search the new-fashioned way - on a reality TV show. Style Me on cable's WE channel premieres tonight at 10. Hunter and her crew looked far and wide for a talented potential stylist, soliciting applications from models, photographers, artists and retailers.

Armed with pictures of mold, stories of rats and descriptions of pungent odors permeating their workplace, Baltimore Circuit Court employees unloaded a long list of complaints last night to City Council members at a hearing on conditions in the two courthouse buildings on Calvert Street. Angel Thomas, one of about 35 employees who turned out for the hearing, said she had developed asthma during her eight years working in the 73-year-old Courthouse East building -- the old main post office and federal court.