Now it's just getting ridiculous: Hollywood squandered its only shot at a competitive Oscar season on Saturday when the Directors Guild of America gave its top prize to Danny Boyle.

The most important painting of our time, Nick Denton With Pancakes on His Head, has just sold at auction for $560. That makes him 63% as valuable as Florida State's Keith Gessen. The buyer:

Everyone's pretending to be shocked about the 10-second clip of porn spliced into Comcast's Tucson-area broadcast of the Super Bowl. Why? That's how Comcast butters its bread.

• The broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII generated solid results for NBC, even though ratings were down 6% from last year. [THR]
• Super Bowl commercial hits and misses. [AdAge, NYT, AdWeek, AdAge]
• NBC reports its Super Bowl spots generated $206 million. [B&C]
• A last-minute deal will allow David Pecker to keep AMI out of bankruptcy and he'll get to keep his job. But he'll now have a new board to deal with. [NYP]
• Michael Boodro is out as editor of Martha Stewart Living. [NYP]
• Is Vibe in trouble? [Gawker]
• David Carr on the problems plaguing Condé Nast. [NYT]
• Fox's Taken was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]

Well, Oscar Mayer's full-page ad in Newsweek (click for big pic) informs us that the meat processor's Deli Creations Flatbread Sandwiches are 'Blogworthy.' They are so right!

Oh, what a shock: David Denby's book, The Internet is Mean and I Am Smart, is full of either intentional misreadings and factual errors or inadvertent glaring mistakes because he is a lazy thinker and a poor writer, who really needs an editor, which is why he would not actually be a successful blogger, because he'd get called on his shit by those "snark-merchants" or whatever the hell he calls people who call people like David Denby on their obnoxious bullshit. Thankfully only two people have actually skimmed his book.

National Enquirer and Star publisher American Media has, for all practical purposes, gone bust. Although they left enough wiggle room to declare a successful non-bankruptcy!

How Washington works: pay your dues as a Senator, then your rich friends get you a consulting gig and free car service! Then you forget to pay your taxes and it complicates your cabinet nomination.

Bernie Madoff isn't just taking a psychological toll on members of his family and the people he's accused of defrauding. Judge James Peck, who is overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's firm as well as handling the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, was arrested and charged with third-degree attempted assault and second-degree harassment after allegedly slapping his wife at their Park Avenue apartment on Saturday evening. Peck was released without bail, although he'll be returning to court to face (another) judge on March 16th. [NYP]

It used to be that private planes inspired hatred simply because their occupants were probably over-wealthy environmental hypocrites. But thanks to the recession, private jets are an even more radioactive populist issue. Fly and die!

A "heartthrob" television doctor keeps showing up drunk, but he gets results dammit. Plus: a sometime blog writer with a substance problem?!

Perhaps your heart didn't bleed much when magazines like Vogue and Elle got skinnier and skinnier—it's all part of the Darwinian decline of print, right? The news that $2,000 dresses are no longer exactly flying off the racks? You can rest assured that truly talented designers will weather the storm. And if you were one of the many people to be cut from Marc Jacobs's guest list this coming Fashion Week, that's a blow, of course, but there's always next season. But you'd have to be made of stone to be unaffected by the plight of the six-foot, preternaturally beautiful young models from Eastern Europe and South America whose fees have been halved as budgets for ad campaigns and shows are cut to the bone.

Williamsburg Photos Du Jour [newyorkshitty.com]

Gay rodent Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter.

Thanks to the internet, dirty New York cops can no longer go around busting up bars and robbing them, because the surveillance footage will wind up on YouTube, then in the tabloids, and finally here:

You'd think Citigroup would have bigger things to worry about these days than paying $1,000-an-hour lawyers to face off against a rinky-dink pawn shop in Brooklyn. Think again. Last week, the banking giant filed suit against All Citi Pawn on Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn for ripping off the bank's name and logo. In court papers, Skadden Arps' Ken Plevan, argued that the pawn shop is "tarnishing the extraordinary reputation of Citi," which he (rather generously) described as "one of the largest and most renowned banking and financial services institutions in the world." The bank is now suing All Citi for trademark infringement, dilution, false designation of origin, and unfair competition. But can a business that is profitable (which we're guessing the pawn shop is) really "dilute the value" of Citigroup when it's the bank—and not the pawn shop—that has reported record losses and had to rely on a government bailout to stay afloat?

Even football players get peed on from time to time. Also: Britney, Brandon Davis, and lesbian love!

Praise be the wonders of modern medicine: If you're a woman who plans to have more than one child, but you understandably want to pop them out according to a specific schedule while also minimizing the disgusting fat phase, IVF is the obvious solution. Instead of waiting around to conceive naturally and hoping for the statistically slim chance of twins, you can just stick a few embryos in at once and ta-da, you've got an insta-family. As Page Six magazine reports, for a certain breed of Manhattan wife—one whose husband can afford to pay for their precious offsprings' lives to begin in a test-tube to the convenience of all concerned—twins are a status symbol and "a conspicuous sign of wealth." But as always, there's no such thing as free lunch: Trying to get two places at an elite pre-school is hellishly stressful, you know.

• Fashion photographer David LaChapelle's two-bedroom pied-à-terre at 170 Second Avenue is now up for sale for $1.65 million. The apartment has been discounted by $100,000 since first hitting the market this fall. [NYM, PDE]
• Furniture designer Vladimir Kagan and his wife, needlepoint artist Erica Wilson, have sliced $1 million off the price of their 3,840-square-foot co-op at 1185 Park Avenue, which they put on the market for $8.75 million in December. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• After spending more than two years in contract, it looks like artist Jeff Koons should soon be closing on the purchase of a six-story townhouse at 11 East 67th Street. The home was originally listed for $18.75 million; Koons is expected to pay in the neighborhood of $10-12 million. [NYT]
• Former Newsday publisher Raymond Jansen has lowered the price of his home in Lloyd Neck to $1.99 million, down from the original asking price of $2.795 million. [Newsday, Sotheby's]

We thought we'd set a record when we made it past the police cordon at 133 East 64th Street and into Bernie Madoff's lobby with a delivery of Chinese food. But it looks like the New York Post can now lay claim to the title of having gotten closest to the penthouse of the Ponzi mastermind. A Post reporter posing as a real estate broker made it to the hallway just outside Bernie's apartment before he was arrested by cops on Saturday for trespassing. If anyone wants to pose as a refrigerator repairman, please let us know. [NYDN]