Was there really a time when these could be found "At better selected stores. About $9.00"? Or was it all a dream? "Your sign is on my balls, baby," we imagine him saying. Click to enlarge. [Copyranter]

An odd line in the Times obit of Dominick Dunne seems to suggest that the late writer's family wanted to delay the announcement of his death in order to make sure it wasn't overshadowed.

Lest they offend their many laid off friends, anyone who's kept their job in print media will tell you they're one of "the lucky ones." But privately, survivors talk of the malaise sweeping medialand. This is one of them.

City Living, Toronto's finest magazine, did not make this cover ironically! Rather, for elegance.

• A&E has agreed to acquire Lifetime, which means it's not entirely out of the realm of synergistic possibility that Duane Chapman of Dog the Bounty Hunter will make a cameo on Project Runway sometime next season. Yay. [THR, NYT]
• The Daily News has dropped its restaurant critic, Danyelle Freeman, and doesn't appear to be making any plans to replace her. [P6, NYT]
• Another luxury magazine is coming! The Financial Times plans to bring its quarterly glossy, FT Wealth, to American shores this October. [Crain's]
• It's been nearly two years since Oprah announced plans to launch a cable channel, and the venture's been riddled with problems ever since. [LAT]
• Italian officials are now investigating Google for its "lack of transparency." Yes, the same Italy that's governed by a man named Silvio Berlusconi. [NYT]
• Larry David will be bringing the cast of Seinfeld together for a multi-episode appearance on the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Which makes sense considering it's not like Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, or Michael Richards have anything better to do, now do they? [EW, LAT]

Google's London office building briefly caught on fire, and there's a very good chance you heard about it, because internet geeks are great at instantly broadcasting images of flames, globally. If only they were as good at igniting grills.

One of these men is dressed to go to work as the judge at Ocean Beach in Fire Island, a job that entails meting out "beach justice to young party perps," according to today's Daily News. Can you tell which one? Click through to the News article for the answer. [NYDN]

In your recovering Thursday media column: layoffs at the AP, a truly awesome correction, another restaurant critic gets canned, the SPJ conference is good for alkies, and Incisive Media has contest that is fun and tasty!

Fox announced today that they're bringing the dead mean girls back from the grave for a small screen version of every hipster's favorite 1988 black comedy. So, what's their damage?

It might be crass to ask, but will the death of Ted Kennedy help health care reform, what Kennedy called "the cause of my life"? Yes, probably. But maybe not!

Mayor Bloomberg said today that he isn't really running against anyone else in this year's mayoral election, all the other candidates are pretty much irrelevant, and that he didn't bother to tune into the Democratic debate last night because he doesn't really care what any of them had to say. If that's the case, could he at least do us a favor make the commercials stop? [NYP]

There is a simple formula to determine how successful the stars of hit television shows go on to become: how long it takes before the reunion special. Seinfeld held out for 11 years, how long did everyone else last?

Today is not a good day for Hassan Nemazee, the banker and Democratic heavyweight who served as finance co-chairman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He's now out on bail following his indictment on bank fraud charges, which is nice. And the terms of his release allow him to remain in his Park Avenue apartment under house arrest, which is good, too. But he can't do very much. He's not allowed to watch TV or use a computer. And making ends meet may be tough for Nemazee now that he's had to put his apartment and weekend home up as collateral, and the judge also prohibited him from applying for any new bank loans or credit cards. But have no fear, Hassan! We have a little workaround for you.

The Way We Live Now: Third-worldin' it, yall! We are the world. We are the USA. We ride on little tap-tap scooters and buy coconut water from street vendors and smoke bootleg cigarettes. We know how you feel, impoverished masses!

Hello. My name is Joshua David Stein. I tuned in last night to the second episode of Top Chef Las Vegas, a show on Bravo and now, I see, a Gawker advertiser. Uh oh.

It's so hard to start a good fight on Twitter. Praise someone effusively, it gets "re-tweeted" endlessly, while nice juicy feuds get smothered in the crib. Every Twitter user is president of his own fraternity. How stale!

How many star photographers who regularly shoot for Vanity Fair now find themselves in the middle of financial scandal? Two! There's Annie Leibovitz, of course, who was sued last month over a $24 million loan. Then there's François-Marie Banier, the photographer responsible for Vanity Fair's July 2009 cover featuring Johnny Depp, who goes on trial next month in France for allegedly exploiting Liliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old heiress to the L'Oréal cosmetics fortune, who has handed Banier some $1.3 billion in cash, stock, and art in recent years. Naturally, these things usually come in threes. Watch your step, Patrick Demarchelier!

Yesterday we reported that Microtrend-spouting flack Mark Penn's PR firm was using his Wall Street Journal column to drum up PR business. Penn is ethically compromised. But today, the WSJ tells us they're keeping Penn on as a columnist. Cowards.

Silvio Berlusconi slept with escorts, and his only excuse is that he didn't pay. His wife wants a divorce unless he seeks sex addiction treatment. How is he still Prime Minister? Because Italy is basically a chauvinist wonderland!

The junior committees at major cultural institutions around town are designed for younger—or youngish—people, right? Well, it seems some old-timers have been trying to slip by at the Museum of Modern Art, according to the WSJ's Speakeasy blog, and the museum isn't taking it anymore: