If you thought Liz Smith was cranky and bitter about her profession before the New York Post dropped her column, just wait until you hear the 86-year-old gossip columnist now.

Pamela Passman, a lawyer who's been with Microsoft for 13 years and oversees the company's feel-good efforts, is launching a new program to educate technologically illiterate Americans. She could start with herself!

Mardi Gras is over in New Orleans, but that doesn't mean we can't keep partying on the streets of cyberspace. Is everyone ready for our season-ending live blog blowout? Laissez le blog en direct rouler!*

• Moises de la Renta—son of Oscar/ex-Phat Farm intern—is launching a clothing line. It's called MDLR; no points for figuring out what that stands for. [SF]
• Kevin Federline is launching a children's clothing line. He's currently attending a trade show in Las Vegas "in the interest of research," in case you happen to be looking for him. [WWD]
• Jenna Jameson is launching a fragrance. [NYDN]
• Michelle picked Narciso Rodriguez for Barack's speech before Congress. [SF]
• Roberto Cavalli isn't skipping Milan Fashion Week completely. And Victoria Beckham's headed to town, so the week is shaping up nicely. [FWD, WWD]
• A roundup of the worst fashion choices from The City! [Pipeline]

His awards hopes dashed, Mickey Rourke could still change his mind about WrestleMania, showing up to battle Oscar the Barbarian—a 7'2" bald giant in gold bodypaint, whose signature move is the Jean Herscholt Humanitarian Piledriver.

Davis Guggenheim won an Oscar for directing the enormously sexy Al Gore doomsday documentary An Inconvenient Truth. What high-profile project is next on his slate? The CW's upcoming Melrose Place reboot. How did this happen?

There's an old saying: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. The latest exemplar: Tumblr CEO David Karp, who keeps getting charged with squelching his users' freedom of speech.

Last night, as Bobby Jindal began his response to Obama's speech by wandering into his opulent mansion and sitting down to read us a story, Chris Matthews was heard on-air saying "Oh, god." Today, he explained why.

[New York City's lights are dimmed in 1943, to cut the city's energy costs during World War II. A strategy we could perhaps employ in these troubled economic times? Image: LIFE © Time Inc.]

For the media, Twitter is the new confessional. Xeni Jardin admitted to watching an illicit movie, Peter Kafka overcharged his boss, and Jeff Jarvis admitted to being an all-around fraud. Today's crimes against Twitter:

Octogenarian gossipmonger Liz Smith was dropped by the New York Post yesterday, but she doesn't want you all to fret. She has other outlets! Although she still, charmingly, doesn't understand the internet at all:

One frantic 911 call and the leak of a very disturbing police photograph was all it took for Chris Brown to kiss his painstakingly cultivated image as America's boo-needing, Doublemint-snapping, #1 teen idol goodbye.

Shallon Lester, the NY Daily News gossip girl who caused some hard feelings by trying to land her own reality show and posing for crazy magazine covers, quit today. To become a music flack!

Seriously, how can you be such a stupid racist?

• Starting in 2010, all restaurants will have an inspection grade—a blue A, a green B or a yellow C—posted in the window. It's official: NYC is now LA! [NYT]
• The UWS branch of Fatty Crab opens next week. [GS]
• The John Dory begins brunch service this weekend. [TONY]
• A peek at Julian Schnabel's private dining room at the Old Homestead. [GS]
• Brooklyn's Buttermilk Channel gets a one-star in this week's Times. [NYT]
• Inakaya opens in Midtown tomorrow. [Eater]
• Chef Joël Antunes has "parted ways" with the god-awful Oak Room. [GS]
• Limelight may reopen as a store. (And, no, not a drugstore.) [NYO]
• Please excuse the Post's Steve Cuozzo. He's in a bad mood today. [NYP]

"What about the physical effects of hot-sauce-laced sperm in a woman's vagina?...if thousands or millions of totally uninformed young men go around putting hot sauce in condoms, who is to blame?" [Cary Tennis, naturally]

Poor Jim Goldman! The CNBC reporter keeps coming up empty-handed on Apple scoops. His latest complaint: Apple didn't let him bring a laptop or BlackBerry into its annual shareholder meeting. Bloggers liveblogged it anyway!

The Observer has a lovely little Q&A today with Jamie Drake, the interior designer best known for his work designing Mayor Bloomberg's 2,274 homes around the world. If you were hoping for some info on the dimensions of the mayor's closet, or if Drake ever proposed painting the mayor's master suite pink—much as he did with one of his other clients, left—you'll have to look elsewhere. When asked if the pair ever had any disagreements about design issues, Drake did not bring up that time Mayor Bloomberg proposed installing a hot tub on the roof of his ever-expanding townhouse and Drake counseled against it. (We totally made that scenario up, by the way.) "When one has a fabulous relationship with a client for a long time, you obviously have a dialogue and a comfort and a trust that is a major and important component of each and every relationship." [NYO]

Unlike the rest of you, probably, I'm still watching Jimmy Fallon's webisode things that are leading up to his taking over Conan's Late Night desk on Monday. And, I gotta say, he's growing on me.

Jeremy Piven is expected to show up for his Actor's Equity hearing tomorrow to determine whether his "mercury poisoning" excuse was totally made up, duh. The biggest hole in Piven's defense? His exhaustively documented partying.