Over the past month or so, quite a few of you loyal readers have contacted me with some interesting information about a certain Ben Thompson who is sullying the good name of BT's everywhere with his hijinx and shenanigans.  In response, I just want to go on the record right now and say that I am NOT the same Ben Thompson who bought a house for Anna Nicole Smith, nailed her like a caffeine addict with a staple gun and then potentially fathered her illegitimate love child.  That's just not my bag, baby.  Besides, that news broke like two days after my wedding, and I'm just not that prolific.

Just in case you've been living in a cave and repeatedly beaten over the head with a rubber mallet for the past three months and somehow, through some insane stroke of luck, managed to completely avoid hearing anything about the Anna Nicole Smith three-ring circus of methadone-laced insanity, let me fill you in.  Once upon a time there was a hot chick who married a really old guy so she could get his money.  The guy died.  She got his money.  She did Playboy about thirty times, had a couple of kids, got fat, got skinny again, and then died.  Before she died, she was living in the Bahamas in a home that was given to her by some rich jerk named Ben Thompson.  Now even as the eviction news was breaking, it was obvious that Ben and Anna were "hooking it up" as the kids say these days.  Check out the text of this hard-hitting People Magazine article:

"G. Ben Thompson, a Myrtle Beach, S.C., developer, says he owns the property in New Providence where Smith has been staying.  He says he purchased the house for a bit less than $1 million in August as a favor to Smith, whom he befriended after he met her through neighbors in mid-2005 ... An attorney representing Thompson delivered a letter to the house on Oct. 20;  if Smith does not leave, Thompson says, he will pursue a formal eviction.  "I don't want to embarrass her or humiliate Anna," he says.  "I just need my money, or collateral, back."

Huh huh huh collateral.  OK, Ben.  We ALL know what that means.  Way to go soliciting sex from an ex-Playmate via a nationally-circulated print media outlet.  We all wish we had those sorts of stones, I suppose.

But seriously folks, you do NOT buy a $1M mansion for someone as a "favor" to a "friend".  Shit, even my very best friends are lucky if I can find it in my heart to buy them a candy bar at the grocery store, never mind a gigantic resort palace in the Bahamas.  No, you don't spend that kind of money unless you're getting something in return, and this is pretty damning evidence.  However, if that still doesn't strike you as concrete enough proof that Anna Nicole Smith was getting freaky with a dude named Ben Thompson then this article that TMZ posted after her untimely death should seal the deal.  And before you say anything, yes, I know that pretending TMZ is a reliable news source is sort of like punching someone in the balls and calling it a prostate exam, but if it's posted on the Internet it just has to be true, right?

"Unimpeachable sources tell TMZ that Ben Thompson, a real estate mogul who briefly had an affair with Anna Nicole last year, signed an affidavit in the brewing paternity conflict over Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. We're told in the document, Thompson swears that during her pregnancy Anna Nicole tried to convince him that he was the daddy. That's when Thompson informed her it was impossible because he had a vasectomy."

I love the language here.  How can you argue with unimpeachable fucking sources?  Can't be done.  I mean, by definition, they are "impossible to discredit"!  So it's true - there is a Ben Thompson out there who landed a babe like Anna Nicole Smith, porked her like a pot roast and then ran for his life when he found out she was pregnant.  Smooth operators, we Thompsons are.

Coming to this realization started to worry me however, as I have long prided myself on being considered the hottest Ben Thompson on this great rapidly-withering rock pile we call Planet Earth (if you want further proof of this, please see here and here and here and here).  But, God forbid, what if this weren't the case?  What if there was some super-hot studly jacked-up dude out there with giant rolled-up wads of hundred dollar bills stuffed down his underpants who goes around buying houses for supermodels and then uses his extreme powers of manliness to impregnate chicks despite the notable handicap that he's had a vasectomy?  That would be pretty difficult for me to compete with.  Being knocked from my homemade pedestal would completely crush my entire sense of identity and make me question who I am like when Derek Zoolander goes and works in that coal mine with Jon Voight and gets hit in the face with a pickaxe.

So I scoured the internet for some piece of evidence as to what the hell this guy looks like.  Mental images raced through my head.  He was going to be tall, dark, and handsome.  He was going to be so ripped that merely flexing his pecs would be enough to rip his shirt off like the Incredible Hulk eating spinach on anabolic steroids injecting creatine into his pulmonary artery.  There were going to be pictures of him standing on a mountain of gold doubloons with hot bikini babes hanging off of his arms while explosions and fireballs and Apache helicopters flew all over the place behind him.  He was going to be the ultimate man - rich, loaded, and so virile that even having his balls tied in a knot couldn't prevent him from knocking up every girl he's ever laid eyes on.

Ok.  Just so we're clear here, this man got it on with this:

BUHHHHHH what?  Are you serious?  He's what Hot Andrea would call an "O.B.G." - an "Old Balls Guy".  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised considering Anna Nicole's track record, but I figured that since she didn't actually marry this guy and just put out for him like a prom date on roofies she might have been into him for more than just his big, hard, throbbing wallet.  Alas, it seems like as usual it's all about the Benjamins (see what I did there?  GOD DAMN I'm fucking hilarious).

But seriously.  The guy looks like the sort of dude who spends his weekends golfing with your Dad and talking about how he plans to get drunk, watch the game, go to a strip club and then nail a hooker.  You know the type I'm talking about.  The sort of guy that "jokingly" hits on your mom when he's over the house for the 4th of July barbecue and who you never really talks to you but who you still feel uncomfortable and creeped-out around.  He's like the exact opposite of what I thought he would be.  So this week, instead of boldly proclaiming myself the hottest of all Ben Thompson in the known Universe, I'm going to go out on a limb and proclaim him the LEAST attractive Ben Thompson out there.  Yes, this might be because he isn't a REAL Ben Thompson (he's a G. Ben Thompson) and hasn't been able to fully maximize all the hotness potential that comes with such an illustrious and regal name, but as long as he's going to foolishly masquerade as one of us he's going to have to be held to our rigid and uncompromising standards.

Ben Thompson the G: Aside from everything I've already mentioned about him being an OBG and all, this guy really looks like a deer in the headlights here.  Yeah, I guess I'd be pretty stressed out if I were at a press conference about how I may have fathered some dead woman's baby, but it almost looks like there was some sort of crazy rabid badger or something underneath the table and this picture was taken at the exact moment that it bit him in the crotch.
Ben Thompson the Mechanic: This Ben Thompson is a mechanic who primarily does service work on school buses somewhere in the Midwest, which is pretty cool.  Not only is he doing a valuable service to the youth of America (preventing them from exploding in a horrible fiery inferno), but he also looks like a cool Carl Winslow type of dude who always has a joke or a valuable life lesson ready for you and who always does the right thing no matter how badly he wants to take Urkel and chuck him through a plate glass window onto a pile of rusty tetanus-coated tacks. More Attractive then G. Ben?:  Yes
Ben Thompson the Cardiologist: This Ben Thompson is a med student at some University I don't remember the name of.  In the the four years I've been doing this, it seems like an inordinate number of Ben Thompsons have gone into science-related fields where they will go on to perform great services to humanity - healing the sick, curing diseases...  I'd say that it was the intelligence inherent in the name, but then I remember that my job basically revolves around sitting at my desk, ignoring all of my paperwork, and writing mean things about people on the Internet. This Ben Thompson seems like the sort of wacky goofball who goes around the lab pulling pranks on all the other med students, like switching out someone's microscope slides or hiding in a body bag and then jumping out and scaring everyone.  The kind of guy that can take a boring day at the lab and make it interesting, and you gotta respect that. More Attractive then G. Ben?:  Yes
Ben Thompson the Jam Master: This Ben Thompson may hold the honored distinction of being the only Ben Thompson capable of dunking a basketball on a regulation-sized hoop.  I used to be able to dunk a volleyball before I had my knee surgery, but sadly I was about three or four inches shy of being able to jam a regulation rock in like Michael Jordan (if Jordan was white, sucked at basketball, and could barely clear the rim).  Ultimately it's for the best that I could never dunk, considering that if I were able to do so I would probably have followed it up by constantly yelling lines from NBA Jam.  "Is it the shoes?"  "He's on FIRE!"  This would have resulted in me getting my ass kicked on more than one occasion. Now Ben can obviously jam it home, which is fucking rad because dunking a basketball is one of the top fifteen manliest, most awesome things a human being can do.  It's right up there with stabbing people and eating meat off the bone.  Now it's tough to see what this BT looks like, but we'll award him hot points for being able to jam (and make a badass face while doing so... perhaps he's living up to the Thompson name and yelling "He's on FIRE"?), having super-cut arms, and making second-team All-Conference playing for a school I can't remember the name of but it was like "The University of the Empire" or something, which is awesome. More Attractive then G. Ben?:  More than likely
Ben Thompson the Speed Demon: This Ben Thompson is a professional motorcycle racing champion in Alaska who makes a living flying down the street at 200 miles an hour popping sweet wheelies and doing his best to make sure his bike doesn't explode from being 2 Xtreme 2 the Maxx. "Professional Motorcycle Racer" is one of those jobs that you know actually exists, but that you can't picture anybody actually doing because it just seems too over-the-top.  It's a job for movie protagonists or comic book characters, not actual human beings, and especially not actual human beings named Ben Thompson.  Well this Ben is not only doing it, but he's by all accounts pretty good at it. I couldn't find a picture of him without the helmet on (I'll admit I didn't try too hard out of fear that he might actually be *gasp* more attractive than me), but if movies like 2 Fast 2 Furious and Torque are any indication of how real-life racing works, I'll bet his a stunningly handsome twenty-something who goes to clubs populated entirely by scantily-clad hot babes and who has a rival bike racer who, along with his cronies, wears all black and goes out of his way to fuck Ben over at every turn - harassing his girlfriend, challenging him to late-night drag races down busy streets, and sabotaging his bike the day before the big race. More Attractive then G. Ben?:  Seems probable
Ben Thompson the Magic Card Artist: This Ben Thompson is a professional artist (presumably the second most-common career path among Ben Thompsons), who is probably the most-recognized by the Official Dork Community for his work on Magic Cards such as Volcanic Hammer and Master Decoy.  Depending on how you view this (and your relative position on the dorkitude-scale), this is either points for or points against.  Personally I give him mega points for because back when I was into Magic (*cough*) I used to get a real kick out of seeing cards with "Ben Thompson" printed on them. Despite the fact that I know virtually nothing about him, this Ben seems like an alright-enough guy.  He does good work and he probably doesn't go around impregnating methadone addicts, buying them illicit sex dens, and then threatening to evict them if they don't give him some... uh... "collateral". More Attractive then G. Ben?:  This man is at an official Wizards of the Coast event autographing Magic Cards, and he is STILL more attractive than G. Ben Thompson. (Oh, and BTW if any of my loyal readers out there are on MTGO hit me up at benthompson23.)

Ben Thompson the Level 9 College Administrator:

Ah, now THIS is where it's at.  Dude, I look like the sort of charming goofball who should be the lead in a fucking romantic comedy or something!  LOOK AT HOW HOT I AM!!!  (Just ignore that zit on my forehead).

This picture was taken on me and Andrea's honeymoon.  We were doing a tour of some big-time winery when all of a sudden the fire alarm went off and we all had to go outside and stand in the rain while the Niagara-on-the-Lake Fire Department did their thing.  It was all good though, because they busted open the Ice Wine to make up for the tour mishap, and it was radical.  Plus, it's pretty fucking hard to get pissed off when you're on your honeymoon.

The point of all of this is G. Ben Thompson may be the least attractive Ben Thompson to ever hook up with a Playboy Playmate.  He might also be the only one.  At least today I have proven to you that generally speaking, the REAL Ben Thompsons are stand-up, attractive guys who don't screw people over, father illegitimate human children or get vasectomies.  However, in light of all the evidence I've shown you today, I'm going to proclaim myself once again to be the hottest of all the Ben Thompsons, despite the fact that I'm almost certainly blinded by my own egomania.  If you don't like that, then you're probably visiting the wrong website.

But just so you don't think I'm all looks and no skills though I've taken the liberty of putting together what my fucking d20 character sheet would look like, so choke on that, bitches!