Amy Winehouse is a strange animal among strange animals. Usually the celebrities that you find on the entertainment betting market are long on controversy and short on talent. Winehouse is both a critical and commercial success, cleaning up at the 2006 Grammys with five awards – more than any other British singer ever.

Which makes her antics all the more bizarre and fascinating. Punters across the pond are especially fond of laying down their pounds sterling on what color hair Winehouse will sport, whether or not she’ll fall over on stage, and whether or not she’ll strike a member of the audience.

We can only hope the fun continues. Winehouse already has a long list of health and legal problems at the age of 24; her life of excess appears to be genuinely heartfelt, which would again set her apart from many of her paparazzi-seeking celebrity contemporaries. She told you she was trouble.

We’re down to five contestants in the popular reality TV series Hell’s Kitchen 4. The winner gets to be a “senior sous chef” at one of Gordon Ramsay’s top restaurants – not quite as sexy as the “executive chef” position that earlier press releases had described, but it still beats flipping burgers.

Bobby Anderson, who is already an executive chef in Niagara Falls, was the favorite at press time at 11-10. Brooklyn’s Corey Earling is a very close second at 6-5; Christina Machamer of St. Louis has fallen to third at 2-1 after losing some of the confidence Ramsay showed in her earlier.

One of the difficulties in projecting a winner is that Ramsay can apply, ignore or change the rules at his discretion. The “Red vs. Blue” format was thrown out the window in the previous episode, when all six remaining chefs at the time were lumped together into the “Black” team. Is Vince McMahon running this show?

Don’t tell anyone, but this is my favorite time of year – the time after Dec. 25, when the madness stops and I can start looking forward to what surely must be a better year than the last. And that’s the attitude you need if you want the most bang for your betting buck. Here are five bets that, win or lose, you can enjoy laying a dollar on in 2008.

The Chicago Cubs to win the World Series: It has to happen eventually – and there’s still lots of room on the bandwagon.

David Blaine to not stay awake for more than 11.5 days (+225): Maybe he’ll accidentally watch one of the presidential debates.

Wladimir Klitschko (-500) to beat Sultan Ibragimov: Study Rocky IV to get Ivan Drago’s accent just right.

Nadia Comaneci (13-1) to win Celebrity The Apprentice: See Klitschko.

Juan Pablo Montoya (50-1) to win the 2008 Sprint Cup: “My name is Juan Pablo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Magic tricks are nice and all that. But David Blaine is putting his body (and his reputation) on the line by testing the limits of human performance in a very real way. His latest endeavor is to break the world record for staying awake the longest. The record: 11.5 days.

This attempt hasn’t been officially announced yet; Blaine will only confirm that he has a new stunt lined up for May. However, New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams spilled the beans a couple of weeks ago. Betting on Blaine to succeed in breaking the record opened at +800, but has since been bet down to +200.

This is some serious stuff Blaine is messing with. Sleep deprivation is a torture technique. Excuse me, “alternative interrogation” technique. But Blaine has already proved his endurance through such death-defying bravery as standing on a 105-foot pillar for 35 hours, and dating Madonna.

I’ll leave you with a video clip of David Blaine performing street magic for paid actors posing as civilians…wow.

British singer Amy Winehouse, whose unfortunate string of bad luck has landed the soulful chaunteuse in and out of rehab for drug and alcohol related incidents, today received the second-highest number of nominations for the highly regarded U.S. music awards, behind American rapper Kanye West.

Winehouse, 24, was nominated in all four of the top categories: record and song of the year for her hit Rehab, album of the year for Back to Black, and best new artist.

But the challenge here isn’t to bet on how many Grammys you think she’ll walk away with, but rather if you think her boozy habit and drunken performances will result in her losing all cred with her record company. On the entertainment props market Winehouse is listed at 6/1 odds of being dropped by her label; 1/1 odds for being arrested for DUI or possession; while her husband Blake Fielder is listed at 10/11 odds of being sentenced to jail time.