• Doubledown Media, the publisher of magazines like Trader, Cigar Report, and Dealmaker, and other titles aimed at the Wall Street set has shut down. [Folio]
• Those Pepsi ads that resembled a "MacGruber" skit from SNL? It was part of a deal between the soft drink company and Lorne Michaels, naturally. [NYT]
• The final Nielsen numbers are in: 95.4 million tuned in on Sunday. [MW]
• Bob Costas is leaving HBO to join the MLB Network. [THR]
• There's a boycott of CNBC today for some reason. [Jossip]
• HBO has acquired the rights to Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean's forthcoming book about "the meltdown and the reason it happened." [Variety]
.• CBS has ordered up a new show from the producers of Top Chef "that puts lovelorn singles into arranged marriages." We love it already. [THR]

The New York Times now considers the mere fact that someone is a Wall Street executive to be a sufficient reason to grant them automatic anonymity in a story. So the neighbors don't find out.

That was the important question posed in the latest episode of MTV's sad mockumentary. Girl Model went to Kelly Cutrone's birthday party and she cried, though she didn't want to.

In Karl Marx's day, religion was the opium of the masses, then it was television, and now, of course, the internet is the "social anesthesia that distracts people from the stress of unemployment," as the Wall Street Journal rather poetically puts it. Spending all day online playing games, posting on forums, and Facebooking is proving the most popular way of whiling away the long empty hours that would otherwise be spent panicking about the fact you may never work again/marveling at Maury Povich's tireless efforts to identify babies' daddies, much to the delight of many website owners who are seeing major surges in traffic.

Roman Polanski's fast track to stateside restoration suffered its first setback Monday when he lost his bid to get out of the L.A. courts that he says railroaded him 31 years ago.

That guy who sold vegetable peelers at the Union Square Greenmarket has died. The carrot-peeling huckster Joe Ades was a beloved Manhattan character up until his death, at the age of 75, on Sunday.

Hotelier Jason Pomeranc should be in a good mood today. His long-awaited, much-delayed Smyth Tribeca hotel has finally opened! The launch isn't probably quite as exciting as he imagined it would be, especially since Andre Balazs' new Standard has been soaking up all the limelight as of late, and rooms at the Smyth are available for as little as $107 a night, which makes it cheaper than New York's worst hotel, the Hotel Carter. But you sure get a lot for your $107! The rooms feature bath products by Kiehl's, snacks by Dean & Deluca and Zabar's, Sferra linens, flat-screen TVs, iPod docking stations, and free in-room Wi-Fi access, although you may want to skip that particular amenity. And you may want to consider bring your own food with you, too—or at least a stack of menus: The restaurant doesn't open until spring.

Failed horse trader Gov. Rod Blagojevich continues his sad media tour on the Today show today, where Meredith Vieira succeeds in making him sound like Bill Clinton in his most pitiful Lewinsky scandal moments.

Inside-trading homemaker and suppressor of differently-colored pens Martha Stewart has implied—via an autograph to a radio show intern—that our intrepid reporting is not to be believed. Outrageous! Why can't Martha Stewart squash the beef?

Deprived of its juicy beauties last week, we were served an extra heaping plate of Gossip Girl last night. But was it a meal worth eating, or did we spit it out in a napkin?

Fox Business has some pics from inside Bernie Madoff's offices at 885 Third Avenue. It's a horrifying sight, as you can see from the photo above. (So if you're in the market for an interior designer, this is one person you probably want to strike off your list.) A couple more pics below, but you can also watch the full video here.

Journalists tend to be liberals because they tend to be educated but not wealthy, and haughty smartasses. So it's no surprise ex-journalists are pouring into Obama administration jobs. Why can't they just admit their fandom?

Heads up, Anderson Cooper fans: On February 26th, you'll have a chance to bid on lunch with the CNN anchor when Simon Doonan and Tim Gunn host the Bailey House's 21st annual auction at the Roseland Ballroom. It's lunch for three, we should point out—you get to bring a friend with you—which also keeps the Coop safe from being alone with an obsessive fan like, well, you. But you may need another person to help you foot the bill anyway. Last year's lunch with Andy went to two women for $4,500. [Bailey House]

Who would have thought attempting to turn Al Gore's eco-friendly PowerPoint presentation into an opera might not go smoothly? Director William Friedkin has quit (fled?) the opera production, scheduled to premiere in 2011.

Were you under the assumption that the recession would finally put an end to those annoying shows narrated by men with English accents who spend an hour listing off the ridiculous items that celebrities have purchased (or, oftentimes, received for free in exchange for the publicity)? Those Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous imitations don't seem to be disappearing, at least judging by Forbes' ad campaign for its upcoming "Most Expensive" special on E! (We're guessing "Most Expensive Crap No One Can Afford Anymore" didn't have much appeal with E!'s advertisers.) But at least the designer responsible for adding that "bling" text effect still has a job!

Last March, the NYT noted how well rich guy-targeted publisher Doubledown Media was doing: "Trader Monthly and similar publications do not need to worry 'until their readers give up their private planes.'" That happened!

Yesterday, the Observer shared the news that former Fashion Week Daily reporter Jim Shi had landed a gig at Marie Claire, where he would be "covering Fashion Week shows and working on a new fashion news page on the Marie Claire website." The official response from the magazine was curiously tepid: "He is working on a limited amount of freelance for Marie Claire on the website only, on a trial basis," a spokesperson told the paper. Limited amount? Freelance? Trial basis? That sure doesn't sound like the job description Shi sent out to his colleagues in a mass email. Shi's grand plans to take over a section of the magazine, start a new blog, and coordinate his Fashion Week schedule in concert with Nina Garcia after the jump.

Today we have a drunk heir, threesomes, drugs, whiskey, secret gay dudes, and lots of other blind itemy stuff.

New York Judge James Peck—who oversaw the first part of the Bernie Madoff trial, and is handling the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy—smacked his wife "in self defense" last weekend. They were arguing about a ladder. [NYP]

In case you were somehow under the impression that every last dispiriting ramification of the recession had been investigated, analyzed, and pontificated about already, Time would like to draw your attention to the ubiquitous but unsung phenomenon of post-layoff survivor's guilt. That's right, if you've clung on to your job, the fact that co-workers have lost theirs means that far from being relieved, you should be depressed: "[D]ealing with guilt that it wasn't you, anxiety that you might be next, exhaustion from the extra work you must take on and even envy of those who get to leave such a sullen environment—that's not much cause for celebration." Add this to the enhanced possibility of getting murdered at your desk and the likelihood that the office is ruining your health, and it's probably best to just give up and go and sell shell necklaces for pocket change on a distant island.