Lord knows I love Giada De Laurentiis. Between her show’s artfully wobbly camera work, her delicious creations, her smiley demeanor and the wardrobe department’s low-cut tops, there’s a lot to be happy with on Everyday Italian.

So I was reading the most recent issue of Esquire recently and I saw this weird-ass photo shoot of her with a white dress and ton of tomatoes. You can see the other photos from the shoot here, including one where it looks like her face has been airbrushed to twice its original width.

Straight men — do you guys actually find this hot? Is this just another thing we’ll never agree on — like professional sports, war movies and pleated pants?

It’s entirely necessary.

• HBO is ordering that Alan Ball vampire show with Anna Paquin.
• 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer talks to Paper Magazine.
• Burn Notice and Saving Grace have already been renewed.
• Nathan Fillion talks about Desperate Housewives.
• Chris Lowell talks to E! about Veronica Mars and Private Practice.
• E! has a spoiler chat with stuff on Heroes and The Hills.
• The 20th edition of The Real World will go back to casting people with goals. It’ll film in Hollywood.
• Heidi and Spencer were banned from The Hills’ premiere.

I am not being at all ironic when I say everyone should watch VH1’s new show, The Pick-Up Artist. Yes, it is funny (it is, after all, hosted by a man named Mystery and his two wing-men J-Dog and Matador), and it is slightly gross (the aim is to get a bunch of losers laid), but it is fascinating.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before my love of the book The Game by Neil Strauss. In it, Strauss, a freelance writer (he wrote this and this, among other things), immerses himself in the somewhat underground world of professional pick-up artists, eventually becoming a master PUA (as they say) himself. There are also lots of celebrity anecdotes. Mystery was a big character in Strauss’s book, one of the “experts” he eventually befriended.

The book is addictive. Watching the show is like watching some of the ideas outlined in the book in action, which makes it pretty addictive, too. (Queasy, sometimes. I am not saying that being a professional PUA is a noble or worthwhile endeavor. I’m just saying it’s interesting — partly for the very reasons it makes you queasy.)

If you read the book, it becomes clear that these guys have not just found clever, insidious ways to seduce people, they’ve managed to define very specific ways that people relate to one another. They examine the body language, the reactions of the group you’re talking to, the ways to keep a conversation going. Yes, they are using this knowledge to cold-heartedly seduce — but it’s still an insightful look at human psychology.

I realized while watching The Pick-Up Artist that what Mystery is doing, in essence, is teaching men how to be better, more interesting people. Don’t be a creep. Don’t scare people away. Stop being so annoying. Always have something interesting to say. Even knowing that Mystery and his pals are manipulating the conversation, I would MUCH rather talk to them than any one of the pathetic contestants on the show, just because they actually seem like they have something to say.

Apparently the only way to get these dweebs to become better people is to tell them they’re going to get laid as a result. Well, whatever works.