Looking for a new job after your layoff? You might want to target online dating companies, which are positively raking it in as the recession intensifies everyone's loneliness and insecurity. Sites like Match.com are seeing major jumps in new memberships, because people "crave reassurance and comfort during stressful economic times like this," as one New Jersey therapist puts it.

• James Torrey and his wife, Podie Lynch, have gone into contract to sell their 23rd-floor apartment at 131 East 66th Street, which they originally listed for $14.5 million in October and dropped to $12.5 million a month later. Torrey is the founder of the hedge fund Torrey Associates and was one of Barack Obama's top fundraisers during the 2008 election cycle. [Cityfile]
• Publishing entrepreneur and Democratic fundraiser Win McCormack has paid $8.7 million for a 12th-floor apartment at 170 East End Avenue. His new neighbors will include Adam Bronfman, Johan Santana, Dominique Levy, and Michael Fascitelli. [Cityfile]
• Former Lehman Brothers exec Marco Naldi has sold his three-bedroom apartment (and accompanying storage unit) at 545 West 110th Street for $2.55 million to Verizon exec Shawn Strickland. [Cityfile]
• Architect Jay Lockett has sold his family's waterfront property on Beach Lane in Quogue to Randy and Bev Cardo for $2.15 million. [Newsday]

Nightlife vet Amy Sacco turns 41 today. Strangely, Today show co-anchors Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer happen to share the same birthday, too: Meredith is turning 55, while Matt is 51. Fox News' Sean Hannity is 47. Entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman (and the husband of Deborah and father of Lizzie) is 66. Tiger Woods is turning 33. Film director Bennett Miller is 42. Patti Smith is turning 62. WCBS political reporter Marcia Kramer is 60. Actress Eliza Dushku is 28. R&B singer Tyrese is 30. Comedian Tracey Ullman is 49. LeBron James is 24. Laila Ali is 31. Heidi Fleiss is turning 43. And New York County Clerk Norman Goodman—the man responsible for all those jury duty summonses—is 85.

• People won the bidding war for photos of Bristol Palin's baby, Tripp, and could be paying as much as $300,000 as part of the deal. [MSNBC]
• Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Lark died on Christmas Day. [NYDN]
• Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer spent Christmas on separate coasts, which obviously means their relationship is on the rocks. [Daily Mail]
• According to the always-reliable National Enquirer, Regis Philbin is refusing to help out his son Daniel financially, even though he's a double amputee and ekes out a living selling crafts. [NE]
• Disgraced billionaire Henry Samueli is dumping his jet to raise cash. [P6]
• The economic meltdown doesn't seem to be affecting the champagne-swilling partygoers on St. Barts this season, you'll be relieved to hear. [P6]

Tom Cruise bought a special car to ward off anti-Scientology protesters and other agents of Xenu; Britney Spears can ward off the blues with the sari from her new boyfriend.

Caroline Kennedy's embarrassing "ums" and "you knows" in the Times Saturday followed questions about why she wants to be senator. Funny, Ted Kennedy was doomed by the same question!

The rumor we heard about Brad Pitt knocking up Angelina Jolie isn't the most reliably sourced, but it is the most adorably sourced.

New York magazine profiled seven city residents who lost their jobs in the economic meltdown. The most heartbreaking? That would be Marc Thomas, 44, failed dramatist.

To discourage people from actually attending Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, the Democratic Congress is promising the ceremony will be hell on Earth, like Katrina, except planned by Congress.

His conception has was almost immediately a national controversy. His grandmother is an accused drug dealer. It's unclear whether daddy was even around for his birth. But Bristol Palin's baby nevertheless seems chill.

· Still have an appetite for memorable Defamer video moments after getting through the Hall of Shame? Intern Leigh Lumford compiled A Top 10 Defamer Video Moments for your 2008 nostalgic enjoyment.

Good Morning America was adorable this morning. And, judging by the dialog, still the gayest thing on the AM dial. Sam Champion and his highlighted lioness mane figured prominently, obvs.

12/25 — GENE SIMMONS and family at Gonpachi — service and food was shitty but it was nice to see Gene and family having just as bad a time as we were. SHANNON TWEED looks fantastic and their son is fantastically tall. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

· Robin Thicke at Club Nokia, and The Movies play the final show of their December Spaceland residency.

We'd be lying if we said we weren't excited for Cleo, Steven Soderbergh's upcoming 3-D Cleopatra musical/possible practical joke starring Hugh Jackman and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Now, Soderbergh has revealed insane new details.

You just know Mike Sidel's Weather Channel colleagues will give him endless shit for slipping in the snow live on MSNBC Sunday. Instead of the ice at Wisconsin's Lambeau Field, blame Christmas!

The Hills is over, but in its oily wake are Bromance and The City. The first is a competition show where dudes aspire to be bros and the second is chicks pretending to be useful.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are locked in an obsessive death match. Only one newspaper can survive! But until one slays the other, they're mimicking each other's every move.

Now that Fox and Warner Bros. no longer have SAG to engage in their quest for mutually assured destruction, they've officially entered the saber-rattling stage of their own legal wrangle over the rights to Watchmen.

There's a fine line between refreshing candor in movie reviews, and the kind of oversharing that tickles the "look, I just wanted a thumbs up, not emotional scarring" area at the back of your brain.