We're down to the final 10 days on the Paris Hilton Retirement Countdown! And talk about crazy coincidences: it looks fairly certain now that when the countdown expires, signifying the precise moment when, according to her own prediction, she is supposed to be retired from the public eye, Ms. Hilton will be in jail.

The only way this countdown could have ended any better is if she actually was retired.

Sweet fancy Moses...

Paris Hilton is no stranger to self-promotion. But when she asked DJs to play songs from her upcoming debut album, "Paris," last spring, she wasn't so confident.

"People go crazy," the 25-year-old socialite/reality TV star/singer says in an interview in the September issue of Blender magazine, on newsstands Tuesday. "They love it. Everyone's like, 'Who is this?' I don't tell. Because I don't want someone putting their phone up and recording it and making a ring tone off of it. [...]

Of her album, she says, "I, like, cry, when I listen to it, it's so good."

Yeah, I, like, cry when I listen to it, too.

And it's awfully modest of her to take such thorough credit for an album whose lead single is almost entirely plagiarized from "Kingston Town," a song recorded by UB40 17 years ago.

303 days... 303 days... 303 days...

[USA Today] Paris Hilton praises her debut album

Well, we're less than two weeks away from the halfway point in the Paris Hilton Retirement Countdown. How are things looking? Well, since the countdown began she ditched her fiance, appeared in a bad horror film, been involved in a heavily televised fender bender, launched a new season of "The Simple Life," introduced her own video game, and attended just about every red carpet event in existence. So, no, the prospects for retirement in a year don't look particularly good.

But then comes this, the first video promoting her brand new hip hop/reggae album. Judging by this dreck, retirement may not be too far away after all. Involuntary retirement, that is.

[You Tube] Paris Hilton - Stars Are Blind Video!!